There have been multiple opportunities to photograph planets and other objects in the evening sky during the month of March. Previously I posted photos of four planets and an asteroid in the western sky during twilight using a 24mm wide angle lens.
Orion Nebula (M42).
I tried to capture the four planets again later in the month but was foiled by the bright twilight making it difficult to see the planets that were close to the horizon. So I shifted my strategy and chose to capture just two planets–Venus and Uranus–that were close to each other and high enough above the horizon to not be troubled by twilight. These images were shot with my Nikon 200-500mm f/5.6E lens.
Venus and Uranus in the evening sky (28 March 2023).
I then turned the camera on the Orion Nebula (M42) to see how well this lens would work on long exposures. The results weren’t too bad–but not great. It will take some practice on my part to get sharp focus and reduce shake and vibration on the tripod and star tracker.
The evening sky has provided opportunities in February and early March to view several planets grouped together. In mid February there was an alignment of four planets and one asteroid: Venus, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, and Vesta. Only two of these were visible with the unaided eye but even a short exposure on a camera showed the other three objects. Okay…some of them were still hard to see.
The evening sky with four planets and an asteroid: Venus, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, and Vesta (19 February 2023).Zodiacal Light and airglow.
A short time later the Zodiacal Light became prominent along with some faint airglow bands near the horizon.
Venus and Jupiter in the evening twilight sky.Venus and Jupiter in the evening twilight sky. A waxing Moon illuminated both the foreground meadow and the peaks in the distance.
In early March the planets Venus and Jupiter were very near each other in the evening sky. Cloudy skies prevented me from getting photographs at their closest approach but a few days later I was able to capture these images from Bonito Park near Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument.
I hope you got to experience the total lunar eclipse that occurred 08 November 2022. I’m really glad we were able to see this since the next total lunar eclipse is not until 14 March 2025. This was also the second total lunar eclipse of the year but that previous one was attended by mostly cloudy skies and we only got a few glimpses of the Moon. This one was so much better!
Lunar eclipse at maximum totality. Th planet Uranus is also visible in the upper portion of the image.
But it wasn’t entirely certain that we would be able to see the event. There were clouds during the afternoon and evening. When I looked outside at midnight there were bands of high clouds stretching across the sky. But I was more than willing to take a chance and drive to a location in Sedona with very dark skies and warmer temperatures than we had in Flagstaff.
The high clouds continued during the beginning of the partial eclipse (U1) but we could see gaps appearing in the clouds and we ended up with mostly clear skies by the time the Moon was about one half darkened. Totality (U2 through U3) occurred during clear skies and there were only a few patches of high clouds during the final partial stages.
I was using a Nikon D750 and my legacy Nikon 80–200mm ƒ/4 AI-S manual focus lens. It has a hard stop at infinity which makes it very easy to focus in dark conditions. Just rotate the barrel until it stops. Done. It’s also a sharp lens especially when using it at ƒ/8. The camera was mounted on an iOptron Skytracker. This way I could keep the Moon near the middle of the frame and the only motion would be the eastward movement of the Moon against the background of the stars.
The Moon was close in the sky to the planet Uranus making for a more interesting setup. The eclipse last year was near Pleiades—that was really fun to photograph—but it was not quite a total eclipse.
The photograph at the top shows the Moon at various stages from beginning, mid partial, beginning of totality, mid totality, end of totality, mid partial, and the end. The next photograph shows the Moon during maximum totality along with Uranus. And, finally, there is a time-lapse video of the event.
The planets Mars and Uranus will at their closest in the evening sky on 20 January 2021. Unfortunately, the Moon will also be very close to these two planets which could make it difficult to see Uranus. Mars, however, is bright enough to be easily viewed even with the Moon. Currently, Mars has a magnitude of 0.16 while Uranus is considerably dimmer at magnitude 5.76 — making Mars ~175 times brighter than Uranus.
Mars and Uranus in the evening sky
I chose to shoot the two planets a few days early to avoid any issues with the Moon and clouds from an approaching winter storm. Besides, the appearance a few days either side of the date of conjunction would not look too much different.
The past few weeks have offered numerous opportunities for photographing objects in the twilight and night sky.
Venus and Mercury in the evening sky.
Above is a photograph showing the planets Venus (visible near the top of the image) and Mercury (located just below the center of the image). The glow of evening twilight on the horizon is reflected in the shallow waters of Mormon Lake.
Four planets and an asteroid.
Taken later on the same evening is a photograph showing four planets and an asteroid in a single frame. This was taken with a 24mm focal length lens to capture these solar system objects (SSO). I did this as a fun test to see if a wide-angle lens was able to capture these dim and distant SSOs. From top to bottom are the asteroid Vesta, Uranus, Venus, Neptune, and Mercury.
Zoomed-in crops (below) show the dimmer objects that are in the image above.
Zoomed in crops showing Vesta, Uranus, and Neptune.
Before leaving that night I did a final wide-angle shot of the southeastern sky which included the constellation Orion as well as a portion of the winter Milky Way.
Wide-angle view of Orion and Milky Way.Pleiades star cluster.
The following night I was out again to test my recently purchased Nikon 180mm ƒ/2.8 ED AIS manual focus lens. A few previous tests have shown that star images are pretty good at an aperture of ƒ/2.8 but much better at ƒ/4. At ƒ/2.8 there is just a hint of star spikes; at ƒ/4 they are quite prominent. This is a stacked sequence of images of the Pleiades star cluster. Image stacking was done with Starry Sky Stacker; histogram stretching was done with rnc-color-stretch.
Occultation of Mars.
On 18 February there was a Lunar occultation of the planet Mars. I had planned to get up early and drive to a dark location but an alarm failure meant I barely had time to get up and set up the gear on the rear deck of the house to start the sequence. Luckily, Flagstaff is a Dark Sky City and it was dark enough to get the shots. This is a sequence from just a few minutes before the Moon moved in front of Mars followed by a longer sequence after it reappeared.
Comet C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS)
Finally, Comet C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS) is in the northern sky making it an easy target—except that it is still very dim with a magnitude of about +12 at the time of this image. The still image is a stack of 49 images each 120 seconds duration at ISO 1600, 180mm, and ƒ/2.8. As noted above this lens is pretty good at ƒ/2.8 but better at ƒ/4. Because the comet is so dim I wanted the maximum light gathering ability so settled for an aperture of ƒ/2.8. Also in the image is M97 (“Owl Nebula”) and M108 (“Surfboard Galaxy”). The star Merak is part of the “Big Dipper.”
Also, there is an animation—made from the same images—showing the movement of the comet over a period of just under 2 hours.
