Mercury from Dover, PA, Saturday, April 25, 2009

Mercury is just outside of the branches of the tree, at about the 9:30 - 10:00 position. You may need to open the larger image to see it. This is just one of twenty-eight images I took last night, including a sequence of identical images at different magnifications, and some comparison images of (I think) Rigel - which should have appeared point-like at any magnification, but also appears as a disk. So I'm going to sit down with my images and try to decide what is real and what isn't. I just thought this one was pretty. Maybe I'll post some of the others later.

Full disclosure: I retouched this image slightly, to remove what must be a dead pixel that was hanging out under the wires and appeared as a white cruciform surrounded by green. Maybe it's time to start pricing new cameras!

PLEASE TRY TO SEE TONIGHT'S MOON-MERCURY-PLEIADES CONJUNCTION, AROUND 8:30 - 9:00 LOCAL TIME, LOW IN THE WEST AFTER SUNSET! If you've never seen Mercury before, this may be your best chance to see it!