Venus (left) and Mercury (right) in a close 0.5° conjunction on Sunday night, January 11, 2015, as shot through a telescope with a focal length of about 400mm. They appear here caught between two aircraft contrails glowing in the sunset. This is a 1/4 second exposure at ISO 100 with the TMB 92mm refractor at f/4.4. Shot from Silver City, New Mexico.
Mercury (below) and Venus in close conjunction in the evening twilight on Saturday, January 10, 2015, as shot from City of Rocks State Park New Mexico. I used the 135mm lens on the Canon 60Da for a single 1 second exposure at ISO 800 at f/2 to minimize trailing.
Mercury just below Venus in the desert twilight, and in close conjunction (about 1° apart), with Mercury climbing up to its greatest elongation. This is a 6-exposure high dynamic range (HDR) composite with exposures 1 stop apart, to record both the dark ground and bright sky. Tone mapped in HDRPro and Adobe Camera Raw. Images taken with the Canon 60Da and 35mm lens.
