Sunday, November 30, 2008

The Grand Conjunction: Sunday Night Photos

Just thought I would post my best two photos from tonight of Venus, the Moon and Jupiter.



Reprinted with permission from the Half-Astrophysicist Blog.

11 comments:

SER said...

Beautiful...........

kkdither said...

Nice shots hale. You even captured the Earth shine. Thanks. It was snowing here.... :(

OKIE said...

As we were walking to the car after seeing the Trans Siberian Orchestra we looked up to see the sky and sure enough, we got to see this. It was pretty neat. It lasted about 2 minutes and then the clouds rolled in. Glad we got to see it.

OrbsCorbs said...

Dang! Hale, you could be a photographer.

hale-bopp said...

I am working on it Orbs...really want to take a photography course to sharpen my skills, but trial and error is yielding some results!

I found this image taken from Australia. Note the crescent of the Moon is on the opposite side when you are south of the equator!

kkdither said...

Very cool link to the picture. I wouldn't have thought about that.. And the toilet flushes opposite there too.

hale-bopp said...

Not so fast, kk...the Coriolis effect is not nearly strong enough to make the toilet flush the opposite way on either side of the equator. It is only noticable in large scale things like hurricanes that are many miles across!

This is a very common myth and there are even charlatans who set up shop near the equator with two rigged toilets to fool tourists. One one side of the equator, it flows one way, walk ten feet south and a toilet swirls the other (Michael Palin got taken in by this on his series Pole to Pole). Strangely enough, the Simpsons used this in an episode and Lisa got it wrong and Bart was right for once!

Lots of things look different in the sky at different latitudes

kkdither said...

Dang, I've been scammed. I guess if Lisa fell for it too, I don't feel quite so bad...

drewzepmeister said...

Beautiful pictures hale,what kind of camera do you use?

MinnesotaChick said...

Gorgeous picture! I've seen the planets, but never the moon.. must have been looking in the wrong place.

hale-bopp said...

Using a Canon Digital Rebel XTi, Drew. Mounted on a tripod of course!