Saturn, Mars, and the Beehive in Conjunction Uploaded 6/17/06

 

            
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A
            rare and spectacular very close approach of two planets and a
            famous deep sky object occured last night, and we took the opportunity
            to install the new astrographic setup up at our observatory up
            in Happy Jack. In the image above, Saturn is the brightest yellow
            object, to its upper right is Mars, an the large splashy open
            cluster in the lower right corner is the Beehive cluster - M44.
            The field here is about 3 degrees wide.
Instrument:  Stellarvue SV80S Refractor 
w/.8x TR2008 Field Flattener, EFR = 80mm f/4.74 @ 379mm FL
Platform:  Homemade GEM
Camera:  Canon 10D @ ISO400
Exposure:  2m
Filters:  Standard IR Block
Location:  Happy Jack, Arizona
Elevation:  5150 ft.
Sky:  Seeing  7/10, Transparency 10/10
Outside Temperature:  45F
Processing Tools:  Photoshop CS2, Raw Shooter Premium
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