Galactic conjunction - December 23-24, 2007

[Coredesat]

A rare astronomical event is occurring tonight - a conjunction of planets with the galactic center. This is a near-alignment of objects in the solar system with the galactic center; it's even more remarkable as it coincides with a full moon.

Tonight and tomorrow, Mars, Earth, the Sun, Mercury, Jupiter, and the galactic center will be aligned, and some of these objects will be visible from Earth; Mars can currently be seen as a star-like dot near the moon. Here's a diagram from NASA's solar system simulator as of 00 UTC (7 PM EST):



And here's a picture I took - the small blurry star-like dot next to the moon is Mars. Not even my tripod could help me take a picture of this; the moon's just too bright.

[Stephanie]

That is pretty cool!

[TexasStooge]

This is worth the wait!

[Coredesat]

I got a better picture at about 1:30 AM with the tripod:

[Squarethecircle]

Cool! The photographer in me wants to ask what kind of camera you're working with, though (usually P&S cameras are not attached to tripods). I opened Celestia (with an upgrade based on the alignment) a few minutes ago and it was pretty awesome.

[Coredesat]

Cool! The photographer in me wants to ask what kind of camera you're working with, though (usually P&S cameras are not attached to tripods). I opened Celestia (with an upgrade based on the alignment) a few minutes ago and it was pretty awesome.

Believe it or not, I am using a P&S camera (Sony CyberShot DSC-S650) that I managed to find a tripod for. It's a Sunpak 5200D universal tripod that elevates 60", yet only cost me 10 bucks. Even with the tripod, it's REALLY hard to get a good picture, because the camera doesn't like to focus on bright objects at night. It might be easier to get a picture tonight - it's hazy outside, and the moon and Mars are the only visible objects in the sky.

When I get a SLR camera sometime in the future, I'll be upgrading to a better tripod, as well.