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Bob Kelly
Ardsley, New York, USA
01/10/2021
05:30 pm

Equipment Details:

Canon XS on a tripod with a 55 to 250mm lens set at 194mm, f/7.1 at ISO400 for 1/10 second.

Post-processing Details:

Adjusted the lighting levels in Photoshop Elements 15 to brighten the planets.

Image Details:

I used the top of the bleachers at the Ardsley High School field as a perch to spy the evening planets. When I took this photo with my zoom lens, Jupiter was 3 1/2 degrees above a level horizon, Mercury and Saturn at 1 1/2 degrees. Once I found Jupiter in binoculars, Mercury was easy to see. Saturn was visible about ten minutes later and sunk into the trees first. Jupiter and Mercury are at magnitudes -1.9 and -0.9, respectively. Saturn is much fainter at +0.6. I saw Jupiter and Mercury with the unaided eye, but only caught Saturn in binoculars.