I do enjoy photographing celestial and cosmic scenes. Milky Way shots, eclipses, meteor showers, all those fun things. But in many cases, those take months or years of personal planning and time. Long-time readers will recall the Herculean efforts I undertook for the 2024 solar eclipse. Or the 2022 lunar eclipse. Or even aligning a Milky Way conjunction with a New York covered bridge.
But last night … I had to move quickly.
Let me explain.
Right now, there is a celestial conjunction occurring in our night skies. Just after sunset, one can see the planets Venus and Jupiter on either sides of a crescent moon. This phenomenon will only happen for a couple of days, then it’s gone.
I read about this conjunction, but didn’t think I had a chance for such a feature. Heck. Not me.
But after I finished hosting last night’s trivia event in Loudonville, I brought all my trivia gear back to my car … looked up … and with my clear naked eyes, I could see the conjunction.
Grabbed my cell phone. Hold steady, Chuck. See if you can get this.
Well … I’ve got something here. Jupiter is in the upper left corner. Venus is in the lower right corner.
But my cell phone camera is not a dedicated night sky shooter.
Okay, Chuck. All hands on deck.
Raced home as fast as I could. Grabbed my Nikon Df camera and my 55mm f/1.2 lens. Slapped a flash drive and a battery pack inside the chassis.
I could see the conjunction from my front porch. But Green Island has a whole slew of power wires and telephone poles in the neighborhood. I need a non-distracting and dark sky locale, at least one that’s within a mile or two of my current location.
Got an idea.
The Black Bridge is an old railroad pathway that’s now converted into a walking / biking pedestrian trail that connects Green Island to Van Schaick Island. I drove over there. And after a few adjustments on the aperture and shutter speed and ISO …
Say hello to a conjunction.
You see it, don’t you? Venus near the tree line? Jupiter up by the left corner? A crescent moon?
Now that’s what I’m talking about. Yeah. </flex>
Now supposedly tonight I could get one more shot at this conjunction, but the weather reports are saying I could battle cloud cover in tonight’s skies.
Well … we shall see, won’t we?
If nothing, I’ve got this photo. And if something happens tonight that improves on this shot … at least I won’t capture it with a hasty cell phone snap.
Chuck The Writer 