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Conjunctions are not necessarily rare events in the heavens, The moon whirls round the whole sky every month and passes all the planets in that time, so that's several dozen a year!

Even so, when two planets or the moon and a planet are close to each other it does create some photo opportunities. On this occasion, broken cloud undermined the opportunities for ideal astronomical photos, but gave the chance for some nice atmospheric ones.

Let's start with a composite to put a bit of detail into the moon.

Moon and Jupiter 1

I like this, it's nice and moody with the moon in the heart of the clouds

Moon and Jupiter 2

Jupiter to the left of the moon, right click, choose view and zoom in to see the (rather faint) moons.

The photos below, taken with a longer lens setting, show the moons more clearly

Four Moons no labels

 

 

 

A telescope would have split Europa and Io, in the images here they are just a slightly elongated blob.

Four Moons

Category: Astrophotography