Planetary Lineup and Zodiacal Band
Taken by Jeremy Perez on January 22, 2025 @
San Francisco Volcanic Field, Arizona, USA
Click photo for larger image
| |
Camera Used: Canon [Canon EOS R5]
Exposure Time: 13/1
Aperture: f/2.8
ISO: 800
Date Taken: 2025:01:23 18:25:51
|
|
More images
Details:
After sad, grungy, comet tail chasing last night, a planet lineup said, hey, how about us? They're pretty spread out, but worth a look currently — Saturn & Venus in the west after sundown, Jupiter roughly overhead, and Mars rising bright in the east. Neptune & Uranus are hiding in there too, but some star charts needed to pull them up in binoculars.
That zodiacal band was a strong visual feature from astronomical twilight onward. Curved looking in this pic since it didn't pass directly overhead. And then there was lots of red air glow compared to the typical greens I seem to run into.
--------------------
Canon EOS R5
Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L III USM @ 16mm
5 x 13 sec., f/2.8, ISO 800
SQM 21.35 mag/arcsec^2
Because of how spread out the planets were, I made a first attempt at capturing a 180° overhead, horizon-to-horizon strip panorama. I don't have a precise setup for panos, especially something so stretched out like this, so I side mounted the camera to a sideways tilted ball head and used the cameras internal level and screen markings to try keeping things straight and lined up with each new frame...only shot 5 frames though to cover that rotation. After Lightroom and Photoshop threw me out the saloon doors trying to auto stitch that, I guess I'll be shooting more overlap next time. PTGui rescued me for manual control stitching and totally rocked the blend. With the strong red glow everywhere, I struggled to color correct, so blue stars/planets didn't get honored too well.
Photographer's website:
https://www.perezmedia.net
|
|
|
