Crescent Moon and Venus - 1 (2012)
On the evening of 2012 January 25 (MST), the crescent Moon made an attractive pairing with Venus just after sunset. In the image above, Venus appears high over the peaks within Cave Creek Canyon while the crescent Moon (illuminated by earthshine) is below it.
This photo is actually a 2-frame mosaic shot with a Nikon D90. The two frames were combined into a mosaic using Photoshop CS5.
For more images of interesting planetary alignments, see Conjunctions Gallery. An almanac of other major sky happenings for each year can be found at Calendar of Astronomical Events.
Technical Details
- Object: Crescent Moon and Venus - 1 (2012)
- Date/Time: 2012 Jan 26 at 01:29 UTC
- Location: Cave Creek Canyon, Portal, AZ
- Mount: Bogen 3001 Tripod
- Lens: Nikkor 80-400 VR
- Camera: Nikon D90
- Exposure: 2 frames at 2s, f/5.6, ISO 400
- File Name: MoonVenus12-0016w.jpg
- Processing (Adobe Camera Raw): Vignetting Correction, Exposure Adjustment, Noise Reduction
- Processing (Adobe Photoshop CS5): 2-Frame merged composite
- Original Image Size: 3920 x 4250 pixels (16.7 MP); 13.0" x 14.1" @ 300 dpi
- Rights: Copyright 2012 by Fred Espenak. All Rights Reserved. See: Image Licensing.