The Dutch Observatory

Tonight we had the close conjunction of Venus and the Moon.  I started my imaging way before it got dark, but felt that something was missing, until I saw a very bright contrail coming from the right and heading for the conjunction.  All other planes had turned to Hartsfield Airport way before they came to the conjunction, but this one was passing over Atlanta and was heading right for it.  By the time it got there, it lost a lot of its brightness, but still a cool image.

Three days of the Mercury, Venus and Jupiter conjunction taken from the Jon Wood Field at Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center and the last image from Flint Hill elementary School, Oxford GA. 

The TRANSIT OF VENUS.
My plans were, since we were hosting the Covington event, to image the ingress of Venus from Exterior to Interior.  However, clouds made the entire event questionable.  Until about 5:45 when the clouds started parting and we could see the Sun.  So short after 6:00 I disappeared under my towel which was covering my head and my laptop which was connected to my camera and scope.  I was able to image the entry of Venus but about 6:13 I had to stop because clouds had rolled in.  The crowd kept me so busy that I did not have time afterward to make another image   But seeing it and giving the visitors the chance to see it, even up to the very little ones was well worth doing this event.  Here a link to the animation of the ingress from before the connection to 10 minutes into the transit and watch the little flare coming from the side of AR1498. (Click the image)

A friend of mine made me aware of some images of me that were published in the Netherlands in “de Volkskrant”.  This is a major national newspaper in the Netherlands.  It is great that people all over the world get to see what we do here.  It makes me fell good to be a little part of that outreach. Dank je wel Ria.

http://www.vkblog.nl/bericht/351325/ISS_vliegt_langs_Venus

Today is the third day I imaged the conjunction of Venus, the Moon, Jupiter and Mercury. I made a special trip to Charlie Elliott to get the same horizon which I had in the previous images and put the three days in one picture showing how the objects moved during the three day period.  The Moon looked spectacular next to Venus with Jupiter and Mercury sitting side by side just above the horizon.  What a way to say goodbye to 2008!!
(Click the image below to see the larger picture. Jupiter and Mercury are in the bottom/right of the images)

The moon is moving up closer to Venus and Jupiter and Mercury moved close to each other as they get ready for a great conjunction of December 31.  This image was made at Charlie Elliott the evening of 12/30/2008.  The sky showed large streaks of thin clouds, which moved in front of the Moon and Jupiter and Mercury.  In this image they all seemed to come through, but Jupiter and Mercury are very low in the sky.  From top to bottom: Venus, Moon, Jupiter and Mercury.

The Moon, Venus and Jupiter came in a beautiful conjunction in the evening of December 1, 2008.  Since the forecast was cloudy skies for Social Circle, I went out the night before and captured some images from the trio the night before, just in case.  However, after a cloudy sky all day long, the skies over Walton county cleared up between 4:00 and 5:00 in the afternoon and gave way to a beautiful sight.  Here, two images of the nigt of the conjunction (Venus and Jupiter are 2 degrees apart), and one from the night before.