the Four-planet dance - May 2011 planetary conjunction

Credits: Luis Argerich

This month, four of the five naked-eye planets gather along the eastern horizon near dawn.
The celestial grouping is seen here just before sunrise on May 5, from a beach near Buenos Aires, Argentina. Starting near the top of the frame, the brightest beacon is Venus. Mercury is below and right of Venus and brilliant Jupiter is lower still, near image center.
Below Jupiter, Mars is relatively faint and struggles the most to shine through a thin cloud bank and the warming twilight glow.
As the month progresses the tantalizing configuration will change, with Mars and Jupiter moving higher while Venus and Mercury wander through the sky closer to the rising sun.

APOD

Planet animation from April 28th to June 1st.

Sky and Telescope

Oh the nostalgia... That is a beautiful picture! I can't wait to see those planets shining in the sky soon!

M
E
G
A

P
H
O
T
O
!
Just lost half my bandwidth
Somthin like this would have done just fine.
www.spaceweather.com...
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/f680bb384178.jpg[/atsimg]
not to mention the already existing threads on this subject ...just a few
www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Just beautiful OP! Great post.


S&F

If you have Google skymaps this is kind of cool to see. Beautiful pics from op

Sorry about orientation its a screenshot from my phone.



This was taken ten minutes before post.

Originally posted by elevenaugust

Credits: Luis Argerich

This month, four of the five naked-eye planets gather along the eastern horizon near dawn.
The celestial grouping is seen here just before sunrise on May 5, from a beach near Buenos Aires, Argentina. Starting near the top of the frame, the brightest beacon is Venus. Mercury is below and right of Venus and brilliant Jupiter is lower still, near image center.
Below Jupiter, Mars is relatively faint and struggles the most to shine through a thin cloud bank and the warming twilight glow.
As the month progresses the tantalizing configuration will change, with Mars and Jupiter moving higher while Venus and Mercury wander through the sky closer to the rising sun.

APOD

Planet animation from April 28th to June 1st.

Sky and Telescope

cheers op, beautiful pic, makes one feel small and insignificant....dave

reply to post by grindhouzer

Thanks and sorry for the BIG picture, I thought that the planets would be more visible!

The two related existing threads are about conspiracies which is not really my intend posting this photography here, rather in a scientific and aesthetic intend.


Anyone else have some pictures of this beautiful planetary conjunction?

Another beautiful photo:

Here are four planets lined up in the dawn sky, as seen from Chile on the morning of May 7, 2011 from a latitude of 23° South. They are Venus (top, bright) and next to it, to the right, Mercury, then Jupiter below, and Mars at bottom closest to the horizon and faintest. On this morning, Venus, Jupiter and Mars form an almost perfectly-spaced line of 3 worlds. The peak at left is the 5,900-metre-high Licancabur Volcano. While this planet grouping is rare and will get lots of PR, from Canadian latitudes, the planets appear very low in the pre-dawn eastern sky and will be buried in twilight. Only from a southern latitude, like here, do they stand high in a darker sky. However, Venus and Jupiter are bright and will show up in binoculars easily. They will be very close together on May 11 and 12. Photo © 2011 Alan Dyer

Credits to Alan Dyer via Flickr