I snapped the following last night at 7:05 PM Mountain Time.
Hard to see, but . . . that’s the moon, obviously. The bright dot below it, near the houses, is Venus. The dot directly to the left of the moon is Mars. There is another dot above Mars and slightly to the left . . . Hydor. Click on photo for a slightly larger view.
Note . . . if you have dust on your monitor, you are going to see more dots than are actually in the photograph.
Tonight, in about 10-15 minutes (my time), the Moon, Mars, and Venus will align, forming a line. Unfortunately, it’s too bright for me to see right now. In an hour or two, depending when it’s dark enough, I will try and remember to snap a photo, but Mars (between the Moon and Venus) will no longer be in line with the other two.
The shot above was hand-held in manual shot at 1/80sec, f/2.8, ISO 3200, processed in DxO OpticsPro 10 and Lightroom.
Correction: that was another shot. This one was 1/60, f/2.8, ISO 800, using my Sigma 17-50mm lens.
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. . . my FP ward . . . chieken shit.
Disperser Tracks 
Saw the same thing here last night, (Duh!) was casually looking for, but not seeing Mercury (while driving) somewhere below Venus. Didn’t realize that was Mars to the lft of the moon. 🙂 Nice pic.
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Thanks . . . sadly, I’ve got a cloud-covered sky tonight. It was clear all day, and then, at around sunset, clouds rushed in from the West and . . . maybe next time.
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Same here, a storm coming in overnight!
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Dang weather! . . . no respect for photographers!
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OHMYGOSH!!! YAY!!! You captured the stunning moon I’ve seen on my night walks the past few nights!!! 🙂 Not that you knew…but, as I stared at it I was wishing someone would take a photo of it…and look, you did! Thank you for doing so and for sharing it! 🙂 I feel akin to the moon and the night sky…so I love photos of it!
HUGS!!! 🙂
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Came close to not bothering; they are difficult to capture without a tripod and timed exposure. Last night i was ready to do it ‘properly’, but the cloud obscured the alignment.
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It’s so dark where you are. I long for nights that are dark; London nights are more like dusk.
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I know what you mean . . . we lived in a suburb of Detroit for 26 years. You forget what it’s like.
However, you also need low humidity and cold to still the site enough for these shots.
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So that is what it looks like beyond the mist that we have had for the last week! Great pic and lesson.
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Not so much a lesson in shouting as much a lesson on really pushing the limits of post-processing.
Thanks.
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I like this shot. The Nikon did an amazing job of resolving these fairly faint objects in the sky. We are usually too overcast to see this here in Webster so it’s unlikely I’ll get a shot.
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A lot of it was post processing. The actual photo has no detail at all, and it took some trial and error to push the raw file and keep it from being just a mess of noise.
I should have used a tripod, but it was bitterly cold out.
. . . maybe I should have put a jacket on . . .
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Yes, there’s a lot of processing goes into Astro- shots. Cool to have the celestial bodies identified. I didn’t know that was Mars either. Interesting and informative post. Ta.
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My first few tries ended up with a lot of banding in the sky, and too much noise. I don’t do a lot of night sky photography, so it was interesting finding out which adjustments work and which are no help.
Still, not a picture to the caliber of people who do this a lot using proper exposures, timed shots, tripods, and sometimes tracking mechanisms, but good enough for my purposes.
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