I went for a tougher shot tonight: Mercury and Spica. These two objects had a fairly close encounter tonight. The first problem is that they were both very close to the horizon. The second problem is that I went to photograph sunset and forgot to take my binoculars making them very hard to find. I never did find them naked eye.
But right before Spica was about to disappear behind the mountain, I got them! Mercury is the brighter one on top and Spica is the dimmer one below and slightly to the left of Mercury (click to view the larger version of the pic if needed)
Reprinted with permission from the Half-Astrophysicist Blog.
"Spica is the brightest star in the constellation Virgo, and the 15th brightest star in the night sky. It is a blue giant and a variable star of the Beta Cephei type located 260 light years from Earth." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spica
ReplyDeleteBeautiful photo, hale.