Mercury, Venus and Jupiter at Sunset

[Stub Mandrel]

Inspired by @The Admiral I saw his pics and decided to grab my bridge camera put on socks and shoes and drive to a nearby bridge with a clear view west!

Despite apparently clear skies horizon to horizon, I couldn't see Mercury naked eye, although Venus was clear. I took loads of pictures of where I thought Mercury shoudl be at various levels of zoom and most of them showed nothing. On live view I spotted one bright dot that seemed too good to be true, but when I got back and usd the computer Mercury was on five successive frames, one faint then four really clear, and then it disappears. Heres the best framed one, down and to teh right of teh middle streetlamp:

As I said, Venus was very bright and clear:

Lots of opportunities for atmospheric shots (no planet to spot in these):

And I tried Jupiter at maximum zoom with high-iso mono and managed to get (L-R) Callisto, Io Europa, Ganymede (his is the only image that's been processed - just to darken the background and crop to the Planet):

 

[Stub Mandrel]

I meant to add this one of the moon, which shows the 'belt of Venus' really clearly. It's the red zone above the blue (which is Earth's shadow) unretouched.

 

[The Admiral]

A great spot there Neil, and some lovely images.

I didn't find Mercury easy to spot, even knowing roughly where I should be looking, not helped by the cloud on the horizon (never perfectly clear). I used a small pair of binoculars to begin with to hunt it down before I trained the camera in the area.

Ian

[Stub Mandrel]

34 minutes ago, The Admiral said:

A great spot there Neil, and some lovely images.

I didn't find Mercury easy to spot, even knowing roughly where I should be looking, not helped by the cloud on the horizon (never perfectly clear). I used a small pair of binoculars to begin with to hunt it down before I trained the camera in the area.

Ian

Yes, I only found it by looking at the images. The way it appeared and then disappeared showed there must have been plenty of unseen cloud above the horizon. Probably on top of Ireland!