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APOD: Dawn of the Planets (2011 May 07)

Posted: Sat May 07, 2011 4:06 am
by APOD Robot
Image Dawn of the Planets

Explanation: This month, four of the five naked-eye planets gather along the eastern horizon near dawn. The celestial grouping is seen here just before sunrise on May 5, from a beach near Buenos Aires, Argentina. Starting near the top of the frame, the brightest beacon is Venus. Mercury is below and right of Venus and brilliant Jupiter is lower still, near image center. Below Jupiter, Mars is relatively faint and struggles the most to shine through a thin cloud bank and the warming twilight glow. Watch, and as the month progresses the tantalizing configuration will change, with Mars and Jupiter moving higher while Venus and Mercury wander through the sky closer to the rising sun.

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Re: APOD: Dawn of the Planets (2011 May 07)

Posted: Sat May 07, 2011 6:22 am
by owlice
Lovely! Congrats, Luis!

There are a couple more images here; scroll down to the fourth entry.

Re: APOD: Dawn of the Planets (2011 May 07)

Posted: Sat May 07, 2011 8:34 am
by JohnD

Re: APOD: Dawn of the Planets (2011 May 07)

Posted: Sat May 07, 2011 8:54 am
by stevenfclong
Surely you forget the sixth visable planet... The Earth?

Re: APOD: Dawn of the Planets (2011 May 07)

Posted: Sat May 07, 2011 8:57 am
by stevenfclong
stevenfclong wrote:Surely you forget the sixth visable planet... The Earth?
Of course I mean 'visible'.... typing early in the day is not my forte.

Re: APOD: Dawn of the Planets (2011 May 07)

Posted: Sat May 07, 2011 11:29 am
by neufer
stevenfclong wrote:
stevenfclong wrote:
Surely you forget the sixth visable planet... The Earth?
Of course I mean 'visible'.... typing early in the day is not my forte.
The Earth is visible but it is not riseable (risible?)

Re: APOD: Dawn of the Planets (2011 May 07)

Posted: Sat May 07, 2011 11:39 am
by owlice
neufer wrote:The Earth is visible but it is not ...risible...
Reads like the beginning of a song.

Or a Seuss book! :D

Re: APOD: Dawn of the Planets (2011 May 07)

Posted: Sat May 07, 2011 12:56 pm
by stevenfclong
neufer wrote:
stevenfclong wrote:
stevenfclong wrote:
Surely you forget the sixth visable planet... The Earth?
Of course I mean 'visible'.... typing early in the day is not my forte.
The Earth is visible but it is not riseable (risible?)
:D :D :D

It is riseable if you are on the moon! :mrgreen:

Re: APOD: Dawn of the Planets (2011 May 07)

Posted: Sat May 07, 2011 2:07 pm
by orin stepanek
stevenfclong wrote:
It is riseable if you are on the moon! :mrgreen:
I believe that the Earth is pretty much stationary in the Lunar sky. There was an Earth rise picture taken though; from the Apollo series. 8-)

Re: APOD: Dawn of the Planets (2011 May 07)

Posted: Sat May 07, 2011 2:11 pm
by luigi
Ty everybody.
I'm very happy with my first APOD. This is a nice encouragement to keep working with my photography.

Cheers!
Luis

Re: APOD: Dawn of the Planets (2011 May 07)

Posted: Sat May 07, 2011 2:33 pm
by moonstruck
If you look at a straight line from Venus to Mars and keep going, there is a faint something. What might that be? Nice going Luis.

Re: APOD: Dawn of the Planets (2011 May 07)

Posted: Sat May 07, 2011 5:55 pm
by kaigun
moonstruck wrote:If you look at a straight line from Venus to Mars and keep going, there is a faint something. What might that be? Nice going Luis.
I did a quick check of the Sky and Telescope Interactive Chart and it looks like these planets are all bunched together in Pisces.

Re: APOD: Dawn of the Planets (2011 May 07)

Posted: Sat May 07, 2011 8:49 pm
by neufer
owlice wrote:
neufer wrote:
The Earth is visible but it is not ...risible...
Reads like the beginning of a song.

Or a Seuss book! :D
Or a Steward book!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_%28The_Book%29 wrote:
Image
<<Earth (The Book): A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race is a 2010 humor book written by Jon Stewart and other writers of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Written in the past tense, the book's stated purpose is to serve as a Baedeker for an alien civilization that discovers Earth after humanity has died out, most likely by its own hands.

Where do we come from? Who created us? Why are we here? These questions have puzzled us since the dawn of time, but when it became apparent to Jon Stewart and the writers of The Daily Show that the world was about to end [May 21, 2011 :!: ], they embarked on a massive mission to write a book that summed up the human race: What we looked like; what we accomplished; our achievements in society, government, religion, science and culture -- all in a tome of approximately 256 pages with lots of color photos, graphs and charts.

Following humanity's extinction, visiting aliens will inevitably reconstitute us for study and food. We're seeking viable specimens to populate a genetic seed bank. Be sure to apply for genetic reconstitution and vote on the suitability of other candidates. Are you reconstitution-worthy? Probably not. But you should try anyway.>>

Re: APOD: Dawn of the Planets (2011 May 07)

Posted: Sat May 07, 2011 8:53 pm
by moonstruck
I just looked at the BIG picture and there is lots of very faint stars in the background that doesn't show in the original.

Re: APOD: Dawn of the Planets (2011 May 07)

Posted: Sat May 07, 2011 10:08 pm
by luigi
Yes! I would love to identify those stars, I'm not familiar with Pisces so it can take me some time on Stellarium.
A few stars were very close to Venus almost looking as satellites.
One or two of Jupiter's satellites are visible in the full resolution image.

Thanks again for the comments!

Re: APOD: Dawn of the Planets (2011 May 07)

Posted: Sat May 07, 2011 11:39 pm
by aqualung
You said 5 planets but mention only 4; Venus, Mercury, Jupiter& Mars.
I believe the fifth is Uranus, but just sayin' :-)

Re: APOD: Dawn of the Planets (2011 May 07)

Posted: Sun May 08, 2011 1:00 am
by owlice
aqualung wrote:You said 5 planets but mention only 4; Venus, Mercury, Jupiter& Mars.
I believe the fifth is Uranus, but just sayin' :-)
The fifth naked-eye planet is Saturn, which is not hanging out with the others in the eastern sky at dawn.