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Clear sky opportunities for astrophotography are few and far between here in North Wales in winter, so when I saw no clouds forecast for an early morning in late January i got quite excited. (I'm easily pleased!)
Added to the potential for a fruitful star gazing session, my planetarium software Stellarium was telling me that the planet Jupiter would be passing close by the moon in the early hours.
So a 4am wake up call found me in position on the slopes of my local hill, Moel Famau, by quarter to five, watching the sky to the south as the moon and planets Jupiter, Mars and Saturn formed a line pointing down to the horizon.
It was freezing cold and in the stiff breeze my fingers soon became numbed trying to press the tiny buttons on my Canon 6D, making the necessary adjustments to get a good exposure of the moon.
I tried as many different compositions of the moon and planets as I could before getting seriously chilled, with this one, just showing the moon and the planet Jupiter, being the most visually appealing.
I'm looking forward to the summer months and some warmer temperatures to be out and about in!
Filename - moon jupiter venus 01.jpg
Camera - Canon 6D
Lens - 100-400mm zoom @ 380mm
Exposure - 1/60 sec @ f8, ISO100
Location - Sky above Moel Famau, North Wales
This image - 800x533px JPEG
Conversion - Adobe Lightroom
Comments - Tripod, mirror lockup and cable release used to prevent camera shake
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