Western Railroad Discussion > Venus & Jupiter in Low Light!

According to New York’s Hayden Planetarium instructor & guest lecturer Joe Rao, I was just 2 days short of photographing the closest approach between planets Venus & Jupiter during their noted conjunction in June of 2015. Although I’ve always been an observational fan of unusual celestial events, I’ve not been that avid in trying to photograph them. Unless… I can employ some sort of grounded, recognizable landmark details. I satisfied those very qualifications with a series of short time exposures of the Venus ~ Jupiter conjunction in the heavens above the ex-Santa Fe depot in Perry, OK.

In the preceding several days I had attended the ’15 Santa Fe Convention in Dallas. On the way home to Kansas I had arranged to spend a day visiting my cousin and his wife in Norman, OK. And we spent a goodly portion of the evening of the 27th on their front lawn, me with my tripod shooting the show in the western sky. The shots at Perry came the next night. What I didn’t know was that 5 years before the fact I was also shooting images I could pick from to keep up my end of the current wrangle with my honorable low-light opponent, Mr Winslow. The best part was that I didn’t have to put up with any mountains blocking my view. Like the infernal mountains Don always has to deal with…

1. It’s 9:23 PM on June 28, 2015 in Perry, OK. The ex-AT&SF depot still has life, but is mostly dark as it serves as a landmark silhouette against the last bit of post-sunset light in the western sky. But something else is happening. Look up above and to the right of the depot’s chimney. Those pinpoints of light are the planets Venus & Jupiter doing their famous dance. For those interested here’s my exposure info. With the ISO bumped up to 1600, I shot an X-wide 18mm, 1/10 second @ f7.1. I used Photoshop’s ‘lens correction’ feature to eliminate most of the wide angle distortion.

Thanks for looking a bit closer!
Lance Garrels
santafe199



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/11/21 03:56 by santafe199.

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Good catch , Lance and a neat shot of the depot!

RC Lundgren

Very NICE catch!!

Larry

Awesome Lance,
Bob

Bob Krieger
Cheyenne, WY

Good shot.  I forgot to go out and look.
sd-45

Excellent photo Lance.

Don Allender

Interesting image and thanks for sharing
the technical details ... nice to learn about
ways to "get the image"!

Odyssey
Evergreen, CO