Starship Asterisk*

Venus and Jupiter are Close

Explanation: On June 30, Venus and Jupiter were close in western skies at dusk. Near the culmination of this year's gorgeous conjunction, the two bright evening planets are captured in the same telescopic field of view in this image taken after sunset from Bejing, China. As the two bright planets set together in the west, a nearly Full Moon rose above the horizon to the south and east. Imaged that night with the same telescope and camera, the rising Moon from the opposite part of the sky is compared with the planetary conjunction for scale in the digitally composited image. The full lunar disk covers an angle of about 1/2 degree on the sky. Visible as well in binoculars and small telescopes are Venus' crescent and Jupiter's four Galilean moons. Of course, Venus and Jupiter are still close.

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This is a lie. Go work for Hollywood. If someone who is not informed went outside expecting to see this, they would believe that astronomy is flawed.

Guest wrote:This is a lie. Go work for Hollywood. If someone who is not informed went outside expecting to see this, they would believe that astronomy is flawed.

You should explain yourself. The description clearly states the moon was added as a composite image to visually show the scale. If you were thinking the image showing the moon actually in the field of view of the planets, then you misread the description.

Guest wrote:This is a lie. Go work for Hollywood. If someone who is not informed went outside expecting to see this, they would believe that astronomy is flawed.

Perhaps someone would be kind enough to remove the comment from our lurking "Guest" and my comment too, which I am sorry to say gives it the dignity of a response.

I happen to like the superimposed moon shot giving the two planets size comparison. GREAT picture of the moon and the moons.

Bravo on the picture Wang, Letian. Thank you for your creativity and sharing the picture.

While applying the curves the brighter parts got inverted, which even a beginner would have avoided.

Allow me to link a professional's image of the conjunction. Picture taken in the same field of view, ASI 174 camera, edited to overcome the huge dynamic differences. Note the GRS. http://www.asztrofoto.hu/galeria_image/1435695251 And the full resolution picture http://www.asztrofoto.hu/galeria_showpi ... 695261.jpg

#disappointed

I mean come on.

* professional ie amateur who knows what's he's doin'

varadinagypal wrote:While applying the curves the brighter parts got inverted, which even a beginner would have avoided.

Allow me to link a professional's image of the conjunction. Picture taken in the same field of view, ASI 174 camera, edited to overcome the huge dynamic differences. Note the GRS. http://www.asztrofoto.hu/galeria_image/1435695251 And the full resolution picture http://www.asztrofoto.hu/galeria_showpi ... 695261.jpg

#disappointed

I mean come on.

varadinagypal wrote:* professional ie amateur who knows what's he's doin'

Well, I'm not sure what you mean by inverted, but from Beijing, China at ~1:45UT (when the APOD image was taken), the Venus and Jupiter are correctly positioned, with the local horizon being horizontal. I don't know the circumstances for the pictures in your links. I'm sure if known, those pictures would make sense too, but you cannot knowledgably compare different sets of pictures under different circumstances without knowing all the times, locations, etc. The APOD is over simplified possibly with respect to the moon's position angle, but in terms of size scaling and planet orientation appearance, the APOD is indeed quite good.

FYI: Parabolic light curve in photoshop/gimp = dark parts brighten more than normal, while bright parts get darker instead of getting brighter/burnt out. Black stays black, grey gets white and white gets black. All this just to show Venus is not round.

Unless the author is 12 yo old or even younger, this picture's just a #fail.

Guest wrote:This is a lie. Go work for Hollywood. If someone who is not informed went outside expecting to see this, they would believe that astronomy is flawed.

It's a telescopic image!

Hi all, first, I want to say how much I enjoy APOD. My tablet updates everyday, and I can't help but go look at the explanation almost every time. APOD also make for great dinner conversation with the kids. Someday, I hope to take a picture good enough to submit... Anyway, this is the first time I have felt it necessary to comment. While the explanation clearly tells that this is a composite, and it is also interesting to compare the relative sizes of the two phenomena, the image LOOKS like a single picture, and this is WRONG. A simple separator would, to me, make it legit. I would like to suggest that APOD exclude such "masked composites" in the future. Just my two cents.

Ah, Human Beings! What would we do without them? Here is my own contribution to this learned debate:
http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/donald.png

We had cloudy skies over the weekend...and I have been tired in the evenings so have not gotten out to take a picture....hopefully tonight.

Interesting view...

:---[===] *

That is a nice shot of the Moon, you can really see "The Energizer Bunny Rabbit in The Moon"....

:---[===] *

varadinagypal wrote:FYI: Parabolic light curve in photoshop/gimp = dark parts brighten more than normal, while bright parts get darker instead of getting brighter/burnt out. Black stays black, grey gets white and white gets black. All this just to show Venus is not round.

Hi, varadinagypal,

Do you mean that the disks of Venus and Jupiter appear darker than the bright "halo" in that picture, which seems abnormal, and that the phase of Venus seems incorrect? (I think the lower limb should actually be brighter, just the opposite of what the picture shows.) Could you please indicate a reason for this? Are you saying that it is due to an erroneous processing? I am not professional and am just asking out of curiosity.

varadinagypal wrote:While applying the curves the brighter parts got inverted, which even a beginner would have avoided.

You should consider that what you think is an error was probably intentional and not a mistake. They look to me like simple shapes intended to show the size and phase of the planets within the bright, glowing parts. It works very well for this purpose. Check your bias and remember that how you think things ought to be is not necessarily how others think they should be.

Can anyone explain what I am seeing in front of Venus? Looks like a white and black circle.

geckzilla wrote:

varadinagypal wrote:While applying the curves the brighter parts got inverted, which even a beginner would have avoided.

You should consider that what you think is an error was probably intentional and not a mistake. They look to me like simple shapes intended to show the size and phase of the planets within the bright, glowing parts. It works very well for this purpose. Check your bias and remember that how you think things ought to be is not necessarily how others think they should be.

That was what I was thinking too.
Displaying the planets' phase in that manner is creative especially in this case where Jupiter's moons are captured so brightly. One may not like that method of displaying phase, but it is only a facet of what this image is about. Assuming it all wasn't an accident in processing, I doubt a beginner would have gone the extra step. Most likely it'd be a picture with only saturated planet images - maybe that would be more appealing to some.