Saturday, February 9, 2013

The Mercury Mars Conjunction


Tonight was the Mercury-Mars conjunction when they passed within about 0.25 degrees of each other. Well, closest approach was at 17:00UT (about 10am Tucson time) so these pics were about 8.5 hours after closest approach. That may not seem like much, but tonight Mercury is above Mars, the reverse of last night, so these guys were moving fast. Here are a few pics.
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Reprinted with permission from the Half-Astrophysicist Blog.

3 comments:

OrbsCorbs said...

Everything is so clear in your pictures. I go outside here and our sky is grey mush.

andromodo77 said...

ORBS, The sky is always bluer, the nights always clearer on the other side of the fence, an 1800 mile fence that is. Great shots of the night in Tucson Mr.Bopper

Andromodo has spoken

kkdither said...

I love the trees in silhouette. I've tried to do night sky shots. Mine never turn out so nicely.

I did go out briefly last night and see the ISS fly by. I think there is a brighter pass tonight, but it is supposed to be overcast.