Venus on January 11, 2022, three days after its January 8, 2022 inferior conjunction with the Sun, when it was as close to Earth as it had been in a century. At maximum, its disk on conjunction day was 62.9 arc seconds across. When I shot this at midday, Venus was a little farther away from Earth and its disk smaller at 60 arc seconds across. Venus was 7° away from the Sun when I shot this image, but it was just under 5° above the Sun on January 8. Even so, even 7° away from the Sun, sunlight was glaring into the telescope and scattering around the field, as I made no effort to shade the optics other than use the telescope's normal dew cap extension tube. This is a stack of 4 of the sharpest images out of a set of 45 short-exposure still images taken in rapid succession, using the Astro-Physics 130mm refractor with a 2X Barlow for an effective focal length of 1600mm, and using the Canon R6 camera. These were not frames extracted from a movie. The image has been cropped into the central 50% of the frame.
The array of four planets in the evening twilight on New Year's Eve, Dec. 31, 2021, and on a very chilly night with the temperature at -25° C. Thus the steam from the distant power plant. Mercury was climbing higher toward its January 7, 2022 greatest elongation, while Venus was descending lower toward its January 9 inferior conjunction with the Sun. They passed each other this night and so were at almost the same altitude low in the southwest. Jupiter (upper left) and Saturn (centre) were also dropping lower each night to also disappear close to the Sun in early 2022, Saturn in early February and Jupiter in early March for their respective solar conjunctions. This is a single 1/4-second exposure with the Canon RF 28-70mm lens at 38mm on the Canon Ra at ISO 100. Taken from Highway 1 and Sec 561 intersection in southern Alberta. This version has labels and line; a version without is available.
The array of four planets in the evening twilight on New Year's Eve, Dec. 31, 2021, and on a very chilly night with the temperature at -25° C. Thus the steam from the distant power plant. Mercury was climbing higher toward its January 7, 2022 greatest elongation, while Venus was descending lower toward its January 9 inferior conjunction with the Sun. They passed each other this night and so were at almost the same altitude low in the southwest. Jupiter (upper left) and Saturn (centre) were also dropping lower each night to also disappear close to the Sun in early 2022, Saturn in early February and Jupiter in early March for their respective solar conjunctions. This is a single 1/4-second exposure with the Canon RF 28-70mm lens at 38mm on the Canon Ra at ISO 100. Taken from Highway 1 and Sec 561 intersection in southern Alberta. A version with labels and the ecliptic line is available.
