Dad's crew flew their first combat mission together in Dec, 1944. I have a picture of dad's crew in front of "Tepee Time Gal" (I need to upload it).
He flew in the European theater flying in the 15th Air Force, 455th BG Heavy, 743rd Squadron. Photo was over exposed to better see the planets. As pointed out earlier, you could cover all three with your thumb at arms length. Just to give a perspective on how close they were together. You will probably need to enlarge the photo to see Venus and Jupiter. If you look real close, you can see the blur of the star trails due to a 15 second exposure.ĭecember 1, 2008. The clouds on the bottom where hanging over the hills west of Pocatello. The clouds on top were over Pocatello with the sky glow reflecting on the clouds. Interesting picture of Venus and Jupiter taken the night of November 30 th.
You may have to enlarge the picture to see detail. I didn't have any time to capture the moon before it set due to the clouds. The Moon is just setting behind the clouds on the bottom. It was cloudy and the wind making it difficult to keep the camera steady longer exposure times (> 1 sec). I didn't have very good cooperation from the weather. I had been waiting for quite some time for this event and was eager to try my hand and some astrophotograpy. The three brightest objects in the night sky will be gathered so tightly together, you can hide them all behind your thumb held at arm's length. The now-15% crescent Moon moves in closer to form an isosceles triangle with Venus and Jupiter as opposing vertices (See Dec 1 sky chart below). On November 30th a 10% crescent Moon joined Venus and Jupiter in the western sky.ĭecember 1st was the best night of all. On November 30th and December 1, 2008, one of the best "visible" conjunctions of the year took place.