Venus and Mercury get close tonight (Jun 19)!

Look low to the west after sunset tonight and you will see the very brightest “star” (that isn’t a star) in our skies currently. That is in fact the planet Venus. Just 2 degrees to the left of that you will see little old elusive MERCURY. It’s a twofer!

Image shows the close pass of Venus and Mercury

image created by the Luminos App for the iPAD

 

 

 

Public viewing at the Griffith Observatory

These photos show what happens outside of the Griffith Observatory  every cloudless night they are open.   Telescopes are setup outside and the public can view from the (small) variety of astronomical objects which might be visible that night under the rather light-polluted skies of Los Angeles.

Tonight the public could see the Moon and the planet Saturn.

If you prefer – here is a full-screen slideshow

Photos from Planetary Trio

I was picking up some family from LAX and I found a nearby residential neighborhood with a good view of the planetary trio close to one of the runways.

All photos captured on 5/26/13 using my Canon 60d with the 18-135mm Lens at 106mm (eff 170mm), 1/50s F5.0 ISO1600. Some processing in Adobe Lightroom to increase exposure (brightness). In reality it was quite a bit darker than is shown.