Astronomy Picture of the Day 5-10-02

NASA ^ | 5-10-02 | Robert Nemiroff and Jerry Bonnell

[petuniasevan]

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2002 May 10 Trailing Planets Credit & Copyright: Joe Orman

Explanation: Positioning his camera and tripod on planet Earth, near Maricopa, Arizona, USA, astrophotographer Joe Orman created this trailing display of the ongoing sky-full-of-planets on May 3rd. He initially captured the grouping in a 20 second long time exposure recording the positions of the bright planets and stars. Covering the camera lens for five minutes, he then exposed the same frame for 45 minutes, tracing the gentle arcs of the celestial wanderers as the Earth's rotation carried them toward the western horizon. Of course these planets, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn all still dazzle in western skies near sunset, but sky gazers who want to see Mercury should look soon. Mercury starts the evening closest to the horizon - visible here above the wide bright trail left by Venus - and in the coming days Mercury will be the first to leave the evening sky entirely as it moves closer to the setting Sun. Tonight Venus and Mars will appear very close together, separated by only one third of a degree.

[petuniasevan]

Today's image is a "mouseover" changing image. Freerepublic does not support the "onmouseover" command, so I had to post the two images separately and redo a little bit of the HTML. To see the changing image, please click the NASA link.

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[petuniasevan]

APOD PING!

[petuniasevan]

Compare this to yesterday's photo.

[leadpenny]

Very creative photography by Joe Orman. It seems to be quite an honor to get an image on the APOD and a "Well Done" eMail might help ensure that quality stuff keeps flowing into NASA offices.

Thanks for your post, petuniasevan.

[DallasGal]

Great stuff!! Thanks for sharing it with us.

[SuziQ]

Most cool image! We went out several nights during the 'sky show' and saw them in their different places along the way. It was spectacular! I like seeing them 'trailing' in this image!

[sleavelessinseattle]

Bump! I thought the world was supposed to end when all the planets lined up on one side of the sun when I was a kid...Don't believe everything you read...Jeesh Now you tell me!;-)

[RightWhale]

Star trails is the easiest photography. A camera on a tripod and a way to hold the shutter open 60 seconds or more is all that is needed. Slide film is excellent for bringing out the colors of the stars, red, blue, white.

[leadpenny]

Being easy doesn't diminish what this fellow did as far as I'm concerned.

[sistergoldenhair]

Love these. Thanks.

[Djarum]

bump