The past several weeks have presented opportunities to photograph objects in the night sky. Exceptionally clear skies and dark nights allowed me to capture some long exposures of portions of the Milky Way. Other nights had interesting alignments of the moon with one of more planets.

Early in September, Venus and Jupiter aligned with the Moon in a nearly straight line in the western sky just after sunset. Compare this with an image taken a month earlier. In the course of a month, Mercury has dropped below the horizon while Venus and Jupiter have switched locations with Venus rising higher in the sky as Jupiter dips lower.

The following night presented great conditions for Deep Sky Objects (DSO) after the moon had set. I have wanted to image this portion of the Milky Way for some time and finally got the right conditions. There are many DSOs visible in this image and are labeled with their common Messier object names.

Several weeks later the crescent Moon was very near Venus in the evening twilight sky. Both are seen reflected in the waters of Lake Mary.

A week later Mercury and Jupiter—both now in the morning sky—rose side by side in the eastern sky above Flagstaff.

Later in October there will be a conjunction of Jupiter and the Moon and then a conjunction of Venus and Saturn. Weather permitting, I’ll be taking photographs.