Venus + Mercury on view

[nytecam]

Spied the inner planets Venus and elusive Mercury due west low down at dusk this evening - my first view of Mercury this apparition and just a degree or so below and right of Venus - all from indoors through a rain-splattered window before cloud returned - Venus 3 mags [x16] brighter than Mercury.

Pic via afocal handheld cam to Optus 60mm spotting scope x20 eyepiece

[nytecam]

tonight's pic

[Tormentil]

Nice shots Nytecam.
I must say that the current series on the Beeb by that young lad, certainly inspires one to look more at the night sky.

[nytecam]

Originally Posted by Tormentil

Nice shots Nytecam.
I must say that the current series on the Beeb by that young lad, certainly inspires one to look more at the night sky.

Thats good - less couch potatoes the better I watched the recent SS TV show, but as much in this field, find it very repetative and needs cranking up a bit The one on dark matter / dark energy was dire even Harry Hill thought it amusing!

[Cordaline]

I got a cracking view of Venus on the horizon on Tuesday at dusk, Mercury was just out of sight. I have been tracking Mars over the last few months or so aswell! x

[nytecam]

Tonight's pic - getting slightly closer

[Bruce Williams]

Thanks for posting this thread nytecam. With your heads-up (now that's an appropriate idiom for an astronomical posting ) I saw Venus and Mercury on Saturday evening. Anyway I thought I'd have a quick check on Celestia just to see where the planets were in relation to one another. I was quite surprised to see that (at the moment) Venus is much further away than Mercury. Here's an enhanced capture from Celestia showing the inner planets as they are in their orbits at the moment (looking down on the north pole):



I found this quite easy to relate to nytecam's images.

Out of interest a quick check in Stellarium shows Venus is currently ~146 million miles from Earth while Mercury is only 89 million miles away.

Bruce

ps - Hope you don't mind me posting this image in your thread nytecam .

[nytecam]

Quite correct Bruce and thanks for the post - as your planetarium program reveals Venus is on the 'far-side' of its orbit from earth and appears in scope almost 'full-moon' in shape whilst Mercury is slightly near than the sun and crescent shaped in the telescope although neither shape was that obvious during their shimmering appearance low down in the western sky

Another pic through first floor window

..

[nytecam]

Video clip from last night YouTube - Meade ETX-70 goto 'finds' Mercury - enjoy

[nytecam]

another vid of Venus [+moon] in daylight via the regular goto feature on most modern small astro-scopes thus YouTube - Meade ETX-70 goto moon & Venus in daylight