Planet Scenes May 2021
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May 31 Unfortunately, we had several days of rain that spoiled the Mercury - Venus conjunction on May 28, so the next clear evening was Memorial Day, May 31. Venus is now alone in the evening sky and slowly gaining altitude, while Mars continues to scoot through Gemini, now well to the lower left of Pollux. |
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May 19 Jupiter and Saturn have been gaining height in the morning sky since February after their historically close conjunction back in December 2020, and moving eastward through Capricornus, with Jupiter already in Aquarius by now. This morning I imaged them about an hour before sunrise, so the sky was already considerably brightened. |
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May 18 Mercury continues to fade but remains prominent in the evening, Venus is gradually creeping higher and now becoming easily visible to the unaided eye, and Mars is still moving swiftly through Gemini, headed for its June 8 appointment to create a straight line with Castor and Pollux. |
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May 14 This evening, the Moon took a break from consorting with planets, as it is now half-way between Mercury and Mars, its date for tomorrow evening. Next month, the Moon, fresh off of an annular eclipse of the Sun, will pass Venus again but not as closely as two nights ago. |
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May 13 I was again lucky to have relatively clear skies for the conjunction of the Moon and Mercury. Venus was also visible in the bright twilight to complete the picture. |
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May 12 We were fortunate to have nice clear skies this evening for the first of the Moon meetings with the evening planets. This was one of the most razor thin crescent Moons I've seen with unaided vision. Venus is becoming downright easy to see now ~ no need to locate it with binoculars first and then see if you can find it by eye ~ it just pops right out of the twilight. |
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May 8 Another clear evening invited me out for planet pictures! Mercury continues to improve in visibility while dimming slightly each day, and Mars is basically hanging at the same elevation after sunset from one day to the next, and ever so gradually dimming as well. Here we see it a few days after having passed by the star cluser M35. |
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May 5 A few days after the picture below, I found Mercury in a darker twilight sky after Venus had set, this time with a different background. To its left was slightly dimmer and redder Aldebaran, which at first from a location that blocked my view of Mercury, I mistook for the innermost planet, until I started driving home and realized my mistake. |
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May 1 After a long hiatus, the inner planets are back in the evening sky again in the mid-spring of 2021. Venus is beginning its long, slow climb into the evening sky, which will never reach a very high altitude as the last apparation resulted in, but it will achieve a nice elevation at the end of the year and finish nicely with a northerly passage over the Sun in January 2022 at its inferior conjunction. Mercury has its best evening apparition of 2021 in May, so for most of this month it will be visible above Venus in bright twilight. |
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