Mercury (left) and Venus (right), 2005/6/27

Mercury (right) and Venus (left) in a telescope, 2005/6/27

2005/6/27 around 21:30 EDT. Venus and Mercury were less than 8 arcminutes apart. First photo: Canon 300D kit lens on a tripod; Second one: Celestron 8"/f6 Dob + Scopetronix 18mm eyepiece/adapter + Nikon coolpix 995 camera. Notice the orientation is different.

Venus, the Moon, and Mercury, 2004/3/22

2004/3/22 19:26 EST. Venus is high above, while Mercury is at lower right. Nikon coolpix 995 digital camera, 2 seconds, F3, f8.2mm, ISO 400.

A view of 6 planets

2002/5/4 21:15 EDT View of planets alignment shortly after sunset. Photo taken during AAAP public star part at Wagmen observatory with a Nikon Coolpix 995 digital camera. Settings: 4 seconds, F2.6, f8.2mm, ISO200 with self-timer. [ enlarge without label | enlarge with label ]

A Comparison of 5 planets

2002/4/24 19:45 EDT Five planets were packed in the west. The above images were taken with an 8" Dob and 25mm eyepiece, with Nikon Coolpix 995 digital camera hand-held at the eyepiece. The camera settings (1/125s, F4.8, f28.4mm/135mm equiv, ISO400) were fixed, so again this is a reasonable comparison in terms of angular size and surface brightness. Mercury was quite low, and thus showed rainbow color by atmospheric refraction (horizon is up in the Mercury image).

A Comparison of 4 planets

Note how small Mars is, and how dim Saturn's surface brightness is, on 2002/4/1. These images were taken with an 8"/f6 Dob coupled with a Logitech QuickCam (lens removed, auto gain off, same exposure condition) at primary focus on the evening of 2002/4/1. Therefore they are on the same scale in terms of angular size and brightness. This makes the picture a (hopefully) fair comparison between the planets. By the way, can you detect Jupiter's Great Red Spot transit in the picture?