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GQfluffy wrote:There's no explaining Los Angeles.

Seen a fair amount of random and weird sky events here. Some explainable, others not so much.

GQfluffy wrote:I'm surprised he can see the night sky, much less the stars.

Oh come on, of course I can see the stars. Some nights I can see all seven of them.

GQfluffy wrote:I'm surprised he can see the night sky, much less the stars.

Oh come on, of course I can see the stars. Some nights I can see all seven of them.[/quote]

Bah! You have no excuses!

JeffSFO wrote:Bah! You have no excuses!

I prefer stacking:

You can see the galaxy there!

GQfluffy wrote:You can see the galaxy there!

You mean the nebula?

Cleary not a Men in Black fan.

GQfluffy wrote:Cleary not a Men in Black fan.

Ahhh, actually I do quite like Men in Black. You're just the first person I've heard referencing it in, oh, 10 years or so.

But I assume it just finally premiered where you live.

vikkyvik wrote:

GQfluffy wrote:Cleary not a Men in Black fan.

Ahhh, actually I do quite like Men in Black. You're just the first person I've heard referencing it in, oh, 10 years or so.

But I assume it just finally premiered where you live.

Hahahahha! Shots fired!

Jupiter, Venus, and Mars were clearly visible this morning with Venus & Mars in close conjunction. Stumbled across this quite by accident when I woke up to hit the head and happened to look out the window.

Sorry for the lack of detail but I took these with a handheld:



The Moon was out, too, but it didn't wash out the view:

JeffSFO wrote:Jupiter, Venus, and Mars were clearly visible this morning with Venus & Mars in close conjunction. Stumbled across this quite by accident when I woke up to hit the head and happened to look out the window.Sorry for the lack of detail but I took these with a handheld:

Very nice! Since my morning starts around 8:30 AM these days, I had no chance of seeing that.

vikkyvik wrote:

JeffSFO wrote:Jupiter, Venus, and Mars were clearly visible this morning with Venus & Mars in close conjunction. Stumbled across this quite by accident when I woke up to hit the head and happened to look out the window.Sorry for the lack of detail but I took these with a handheld:

Very nice! Since my morning starts around 8:30 AM these days, I had no chance of seeing that.

Thanks, Vik. It was just dumb luck that I happened to see this at all. One thing I forgot to mention though, just after turning the camera off a meteor streaked through the formation so it was a cherry on top for the whole experience.

JeffSFO wrote:One thing I forgot to mention though, just after turning the camera off a meteor streaked through the formation so it was a cherry on top for the whole experience.

That'll teach you - always leave your camera on for 2 more seconds!

Random fact: I have never captured a meteor with my camera (at least not one you could see in the resulting photo).

vikkyvik wrote:

JeffSFO wrote:One thing I forgot to mention though, just after turning the camera off a meteor streaked through the formation so it was a cherry on top for the whole experience.

That'll teach you - always leave your camera on for 2 more seconds!

Random fact: I have never captured a meteor with my camera (at least not one you could see in the resulting photo).

I've seen some incredible meteors in very scenic places (a big, bright, bolide with the GG Bridge in the background and another one so bright it was visible through the fog at Baker Beach one night so it lit up everything with an eerie glow, etc).

The funny thing is that even after managing to catch a good one they always disappoint me once on screen because the real thing is always much more vivid. For instance, the shot below was of a very large and bright meteor but you'd never know from this shot (I suppose shooting at very wide angles for extended durations doesn't help matters).

JeffSFO wrote:The funny thing is that even after managing to catch a good one they always disappoint me once on screen because the real thing is always much more vivid. For instance, the shot below was of a very large and bright meteor but you'd never know from this shot (I suppose shooting at very wide angles for extended durations doesn't help matters).

That's a nice shot. Yeah, I think the key to capturing meteors is to take lots of short exposures, then layer them in post if desired - same thing I usually do for star trails.

I am waiting on Vik to announce something here.

Lucas wrote:I am waiting on Vik to announce something here.

Uh, stars and stuff.

OK, now that I'm back home...

Nothing major, but Mars and Saturn are quite close together for the next several weeks, and on the night of 4/24, will be in a nice triangle with the moon:



Unfortunately they don't rise until around 11 PM, but still might be cool.

The early morning sky (4:30) has been amazing here in NoVA for the past month.

Randomly walked outside, and this was staring me in the face.

Saturn at middle-left, Mars being very red slightly below-right of center, and the full moon, along with some other stars. Tough to get across how brilliant it all looked. This is several frames stacked, then HDR'd with another frame:

The Moon, Mars, Antares, and Saturn were in a nice diamond last night (Antares is at the bottom, right next to the "p" in "Copyright"):



Also did a zoomed in stack of Mars:



And one of Jupiter, with Callisto, Europa, and Ganymede visible:



And out of interest, I shot a zoomed in frame of Saturn. While you can't discern the rings separately, the planet + rings is very obviously oblong. Also, its moon Titan is visible just above-left of Saturn, and the moon Rhea is very very faintly visible just above-right of Saturn. This is a crop at 100%:

Vik is about to post some cool pics. You heard it here first.

Something something something Dark Side.
Something something something complete.

No cool pics Lucas.

Just a friendly note that if anyone wants a photography challenge (not much of a challenge, really), Mars and Uranus will be right next to each other (less than 1 degree apart), and less than 10 degrees from Venus, on Feb 26.

Then on Feb 28, Venus, Mars, and a very crescent Moon will be in a triangle (with Uranus near Mars).

vikkyvik wrote:Just a friendly note that if anyone wants a photography challenge (not much of a challenge, really), Mars and Uranus will be right next to each other (less than 1 degree apart), and less than 10 degrees from Venus, on Feb 26.Then on Feb 28, Venus, Mars, and a very crescent Moon will be in a triangle (with Uranus near Mars).

Well, I totally forgot about all that.

But I did take some photos last night. So I present to you, the Moon and three planets (Mars, Uranus, Venus). Uranus is directly below Mars, about half as far as the Moon from Mars:



It's a stack of ~20 photos. I may do a re-edit of it, as I'm not all that happy with the result.

Better edit, with some HDR to tame the bright Moon: