[ValleyNature] Photos of Early Morning Planet Arrangement.

[Sherman Williams]

The skies at Horton Bluff (Avonport) were reasonably co-operative  
during the recent presentation of planets in the early morning sky.   
I managed a few photos on the mornings of Oct 11, 12, 14 and 15.  The  
best balance for natural lighting and contrast was obtained between  
6:15 and 6:45 a.m. with typical exposures between 5 and 10 sec, ISO  
200,  f 5.6 to f 8.0, using a SONY point-and-shoot in manual mode on  
tripod.

Both Mercury and Venus are advancing more in line with the Sun (their  
orbits are taking them around to pass behind the Sun, relative to  
us). The effect is that each morning, they rise later and are deeper  
into the brightening dawn. For example on the 11th Mercury rose just  
about at 6 a.m., by Oct 15th it was lazy; it did not get up until  
about 6:16 a.m.!    So, we just had to wait until it was high enough  
to be seen, without the dawn being too bright.    By the 15th it was  
more difficult to pick Mercury out without the binoculars, the sky  
was quite bright before Mercury was high enough to be seen well.

You can also see that during this period Venus and Saturn traded  
places relative to the horizon. Unfortunately, the morning they were  
side by side, the sky was totally overcast.

Two of the mornings, I had to wait out passing, low cloud, before the  
right moment for a photo, presented itself.  Here is a sample of whai  
I saw and captured digitally, on each of the mornings mentioned.  You  
can view as a slideshow.  Hope it works.          http:// 
picasaweb.google.ca/shermwill/MorningPlanetsOct2009

The thin crescent Moon joined the grouping, near Venus on the morning  
of the 16th, but that too was an overcast morning for me. Some folks  
who post on Spaceweather caught it.  http://www.spaceweather.com/

On all the mornings, Mars was also putting on a little show of its  
own, involving the crescent Moon and the Gemini Twins (Pollux and  
Castor). I may include a photo of one of the arrangements in the  
slideshow at a later date.


Sherman
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