Saturday, November 2, 2019

Lightnings, New moon, Conjunctions and more

The last week of October (2019) was very busy for me with planed and unplanned events that I photographed. 
On Saturday evening (26th) there was a thunderstorm a bit from me so most of the lightnings were far. and yet some were very close like this one.

There are several methods to capture lightnings. One way is to put a camera on tripod and set it for long exposures of 5 seconds, hoping to catch something. If the storm is heavy you can try and take a video, even with your smartphone, using the slow motion option, which works better than regular video even that it has a limited duration.


A lightning 26-Oct-2019
A lightning 26-Oct-2019

On Sunday I noticed lightnings in a very far cloud (70 km from me). It was very strange to see these far away lightnings within the cloud as can be seen in this short movie.


A longer version is in you tube

Tuesday (29th) was the first option to see the new moon. Stating with  a nice sunset, I spot the moon, and as a bonus Venus and Mercury were close as well.
In the photo with all three it is clearly seen that while Venus is more or less on the ecliptic, The moon is norther and Mercury is to the south.


sunset 29-Oct-2019
sunset 29-Oct-2019

The new moon 29-Oct-2019
The new moon 29-Oct-2019

Mercury is between the wires of the antenna at the bottom left of the photo
The new moon, Venus and Mercury 29-Oct-2019
The new moon, Venus and Mercury 29-Oct-2019
In the following photo, earthshine is visible, light reflected from the Earth to the Moon and back again to Earth make us see even the dark parts of the moon and its entire disc.
The new moon 29-Oct-2019
The new moon 29-Oct-2019


Just two days later a close conjunction (about 1 deg) of Jupiter and the moon
The moon and Jupiter 31-Oct-2019
The moon and Jupiter 31-Oct-2019

And only two days later, just a few hours after the conjunction with Saturn
Moon and Saturn 2-Nov-2019
Moon and Saturn 2-Nov-2019

What a nice week!