Venus Mercury Conjunction
Taken by Dave Walker on June 1, 2012 @
Promenade, Cleveleys, UK
Click photo for larger image
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Camera Used: SAMSUNG GT-I9100P
Exposure Time: 1/50
Aperture: f/2.7
ISO: 50
Date Taken: 2012:06:02 00:57:47
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Details:
On June 1st, I took the opportunity to drive to Cleveleys where I knew I would get a decent horizon to view the conjunction, weather permitting. As I approached the coast the clouds all but disappeared so I set to finding Venus, which I knew would be tricky in broad daylight.
I pointed the mount north as best I could, and using an appropriate solar filter I was able to track the Sun well enough. Fortunately, there was also a daylight Moon, so I could further train the mount to track that as well. Finally, I asked it to go to Venus and lo, there it was in the 25mm eyepiece, with Mercury twinkling brightly beside it.
My kit comprises a Celestron NextStar 127SLT, mounted atop a Celestron CG-5 AS-GT as I found the original Alt-Az mount supplied was prone to wobble too much in the wind. The photo was taken with a Canon 600D at prime focus, by shooting a short video in HD at 25fps. I converted the frames from the resulting MOV file into a folder full of BMP files and used Registax to create the end result.
It’s not every day visitors to the beach come across a stargazer on the promenade, especially not in broad daylight. Folk would walk/jog/cycle by, then stop, look at me and say “if I don’t ask, I’ll never know”, so much so I completely forgot to attach the counterweights. I would show them the Sun through the filter, sunspots and all, then Venus and Mercury together. It was very rewarding to see the amazement light up their faces, especially when they learned that this lot didn’t cost the earth.
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