Alignment of Moon, Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury
January 1st, 2019
January 1st, 2019
Alignment of Moon, Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury
identified with Mercury magnified
(both images best viewed when enlarged)
Mercury is always hard to spot. Especially where I live, here in North Alabama. But on January 1st, 2019, I was on the causeway between Titusville, Florida and Merritt Island NWR awaiting the rising sun. The sky was dark, the waning moon shown bright, but so did two bright planets. I assumed the planets to be Venus, and Jupiter and when I checked the positions of the two planets I discovered I was correct. But, I also saw from the chart that Mercury was in the morning sky, below Jupiter and very low to the horizon (as always). Sure enough, I found it just above the horizon in the glow of dawn. I used binoculars to find Mercury, but once found I could easily see it with the naked eye.
I was so excited! The last time I remember seeing Mercury was at least 50, maybe 52 years ago. An exception of course was the Mercury transit on November 10, 1973. Mercury was easy to see as it crossed the face of the Sun. (with filters of course).
I quickly set up my tripod to take a photo of the event. I did a number of exposures and settled on this one to post. The first image shows the moon and all three planets, but mercury is hard to see in the wide-angle shot as it is much dimmer than Venus and Jupiter. If you can view the image full screen you can see Mercury half way between the left side of the image and the middle of the image in line with the clouds on the horizon. In the second image I have enlarged Mercury, and named each of the planets and moon. Mercury is inside the white circle.
What a great way to start the New Year. I hope its not another 50 years before I see Mercury again! By the way, Florida has a great horizon line for seeing Mercury. Lucky Floridians.
If you’re interest, Mercury will transit the Sun on November 11, 2019. The entire transit will be visible from the eastern half of the United States and most of it visible from the entire continent. The transit will last over 5 hours, very long for a transit.
If I am lucky enough to see this transit it will be my last. Though there are two more transits, one on November 13, 2032 and another on November 7, 2039 neither will be visible from the North America. The next transit visible from North American that will be, May 7, 2049.
Exposure: 2 seconds @ f/5.6, on tripod
Great reading your bblog post
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