A gathering of the three inner rocky planets (plus Earth is there, too!) in the dawn sky on September 12, 2017, with: • Venus bright at top in the high cirrus • Mars lowest of the trio below Mercury and … • Mercury below Regulus, low, but at its greatest western elongation this morning, at the best dawn apparition of the year for northern latitudes. So this is about as high as Mercury gets. Mercury was very obvious naked eye without any searching required. Mars needed binoculars to readily pick out. This is a single exposure with the Rokinon 85mm lens and Canon 6D MkII.
The winter stars and constellations in dawn in early September (Sept 5, 2017) from home in Alberta. Venus is the bright object at left in the morning twilght. Orion is at right, with Sirius just rising above the trees. The rest of the winter panorama of constellations are all there: Auriga at top, Taurus and the Pleiades at top right, and Gemini left of centre The Beehive star cluster in Cancer is above and right of Venus. Procyon is right of Venus. This illustrates how the winter stars can be seen even here even in what is officially still summer, before the autumn equinox, provide you get up very early! The nearly Full Moon is setting opposite this scene, providing some of the foreground illumination and shadows. This is a two-section panorama with the Rokinon 14mm SP lens at f/2.5 and Canon 6D.
