Mercury and the Pleiades

[petevasey]

As you know, Mercury passed near and South of M45 at the end of April. Generally cloudy weather in NE England at that time, but the evening of 29th April was clear although with a lot of moisture in the air, and as luck would have it, Mercury was at its closest to M45.  I had a clear view of a low Western horizon, and was able to capture the attached.  Canon 700D with Canon 400L lens (400mm fl) at f 6.3.  Stack of 15 x 4 second subs at ISO 800.  North is up, so the horizon is tilted by 30 degrees.

As you can see when it was dark enough (22:19 BST) to show the brighter stars of the Pleiades, Mercury (4 degrees altitude) was fast sinking into horizon murk!   Sod's law kicked in today, so the even more interesting view this evening of both objects with a thin crescent Moon in a straight line parallel to the horizon was clouded out 😡

Cheers,

Peter

 

Edited July 5, 2022 by petevasey
Corrections

[Pete Presland]

Beautiful looking capture 

[Trevor N]

Very nice. I like that sort of shot👍

[Pete Presland]

A fine wide field view

[Franklin]

M45?

[petevasey]

Well spotted, now corrected!  In the words of the immortal Captain M  'I wondered when someone would notice that'.  For those who are new to this thread, I originally had a typo: M25 instead of M45.  Oops!

Cheers,

Peter

Edited July 5, 2022 by petevasey