Dear <<First Name>>
Welcome to Night Sky Photography Newsletter #39. Venus and Jupiter are shining together in the morning sky and I have a "What the Aurora Really Looks Like" video for you below.
What's up in the sky this month?
Moon
Full Moon: Tuesday 27th October
New Moon: Wednesday 11th November
The Full Moon rising will be an easy photo target on the 27th or a day or two later opposite the setting sun. Perigee (when the Moon is closest to the Earth is at almost the same time so you might see this called a ' Super-Full-Moon' again but the difference is only slight. Check out the crescent Moon with Venus and Jupiter in the morning sky on the 5th and 6th November.
Morning Conjunction - Venus, Jupiter and Mars
Venus and Jupiter are the two brightest planets and right now they are in conjunction in the morning sky. Sky and Telescope (as usual) have a great article with details about this event. You can get detailed timings for your location from In-The-Sky.org.
Venus and Jupiter are closest together on Monday 26th (sorry for the late notice!) but the pair will be very close for several days this week so you have a few chances to get the right weather. Mars is also nearby but will be much fainter and harder to see and will appear much less obvious in photos. Mercury is near the horizon but good luck spotting that!
Planets in conjunction in the early dawn sky, about an hour before sunrise.
Watch them change position daily, while Mars keeps them company.
Mercury is near the horizon. Sky & Telescope diagram
Early in November the crescent Moon joins the show and this will make for probably the most striking images. The two key dates will be the 6th and 7th November so mark them in your diary now!
The waning crescent Moon comes by to pose with Jupiter on November 6th, then Venus and Mars on the 7th.
The Moon is drawn three times its actual apparent size in the sky. Sky and Telescope diagram.
Conjunctions are one of the rare occasions in night sky photography where longer focal lengths work well. Once dawn twilight starts you'll need to use your light meter to set the exposure time, but try a variety of focal lengths and see what you like best. Exposures can be up to 3-5 seconds with 200mm focal length, 5-10 seconds with 100mm and 10-15 seconds at 50mm. You may see a little trailing when viewed at 100% but don't let that put you off trying longer exposures. You can try Check out Page 107 in your copy of my Shooting Stars eBook for some more ideas.
Venus, Jupiter and Mars above xianuodukji peak (22nd October)
Yading national natural reserve, Sichuan province of China
Photo by Jeff Dai via SpaceWeather.com
Canon 6D, 4 secs, f2.5, ISO12800
Sky Charts for October
I highly recommend 'The Evening Sky Map' which includes a list of celestial events for the month. You can download Northern and Southern Hemisphere editions as well as one for Equatorial Regions. Scroll down the page and choose the right one for you.
What the Aurora Really Looks Like - New Video
After my Aurora Adventures in Canada's Yukon Territory in 2012, I was fortunate to see paintings of the aurora made by Danish painter Harald Moltke in Copenhagen. Between 1899-1901 Moltke was part of three science expeditions to Finland and Iceland to study the aurora. Moltke was hired by the Danish Meteorological Institute (BMI) to reproduce and convey the colours and forms of the aurora through his paintings. They have since become the most valuable and enduring result of those early science expeditions.
Unbiased by colour photographs, the first of which only appeared fifty years later, Moltke's paintings faithfully record the colours of the aurora as seen by the human eye. Inspired by these paintings, and the biography of Harald Moltke by former DMI researcher Peter Stauning, I have reprocessed the footage of the aurora I captured in the Yukon Territory in an attempt (admittedly impossible) to show the aurora as it appears to the eye.
There are two key messages about how the aurora is presented in this video:
- All of the digital imagery is animated and played back in real-time (with frame interpolation which does introduce some artefacts).
- Colours have been de-saturated to match the visual appearance.
There's more info about the video on my site and Phil Plait has just featured it in his Bad Astronomy blog. Because it's real-time you need to be patient but if you can stick around for the second half you'll get some idea of what it's like to stand under an aurora storm. It took *a lot* of effort to produce this so you'd make me happy if you could find seven minutes to enjoy it - turn the lights down and the music up! :-)
I also have another (older) video that ties together the Aurora theme with the ongoing Venus and Jupiter Conjunction. One of the first timelape videos I released from my Yukon Aurora Adventues, was " The Venus and Jupiter Show". This video features day-night timelapse sequences including the aurora over two months, showing the changing configuration of Venus, Jupiter and the Moon. I have screenshots with explanations on my site or just check-out the video on Vimeo. If you're in a real hurry you can skip the 1 minute long twilight sequence at the start!
As always, it is your support and sharing that motivates me to keep preparing these newsletters. If you get a shot of the conjunction you can reply to this email or share your images on the Night Sky Photography Facebook Page.
Phil Hart 
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