APOD: Dawn of the Planets (2011 May 07)

APOD Robot · Post by **APOD Robot** » Sat May 07, 2011 4:06 am

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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owlice · Post by **owlice** » Sat May 07, 2011 6:22 am

Lovely! Congrats, Luis!

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

JohnD · Post by **JohnD** » Sat May 07, 2011 8:34 am

BINGO!
http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php? ... 71#p148071

Thanks!
John

stevenfclong · Post by **stevenfclong** » Sat May 07, 2011 8:54 am

Surely you forget the sixth visable planet... The Earth?

stevenfclong · Post by **stevenfclong** » Sat May 07, 2011 8:57 am

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.

neufer · Post by **neufer** » Sat May 07, 2011 11:29 am

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?)

owlice · Post by **owlice** » Sat May 07, 2011 11:39 am

neufer wrote:The Earth is visible but it is not ...risible...

Reads like the beginning of a song.

Or a Seuss book!

stevenfclong · Post by **stevenfclong** » Sat May 07, 2011 12:56 pm

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?)

It is riseable if you are on the moon!

orin stepanek · Post by **orin stepanek** » Sat May 07, 2011 2:07 pm

stevenfclong wrote:
It is riseable if you are on the moon!

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.

luigi · Post by **luigi** » Sat May 07, 2011 2:11 pm

Ty everybody.
I'm very happy with my first APOD. This is a nice encouragement to keep working with my photography.

Cheers!
Luis

moonstruck · Post by **moonstruck** » Sat May 07, 2011 2:33 pm

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.

kaigun · Post by **kaigun** » Sat May 07, 2011 5:55 pm

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.

neufer · Post by **neufer** » Sat May 07, 2011 8:49 pm

owlice wrote:
neufer wrote:
The Earth is visible but it is not ...risible...
Reads like the beginning of a song.

Or a Seuss book!

Or a Steward book!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_%28The_Book%29 wrote:
<<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.>>

moonstruck · Post by **moonstruck** » Sat May 07, 2011 8:53 pm

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.

luigi · Post by **luigi** » Sat May 07, 2011 10:08 pm

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!

aqualung · Post by **aqualung** » Sat May 07, 2011 11:39 pm

You said 5 planets but mention only 4; Venus, Mercury, Jupiter& Mars.
I believe the fifth is Uranus, but just sayin'

owlice · Post by **owlice** » Sun May 08, 2011 1:00 am

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.

Starship Asterisk*

APOD: Dawn of the Planets (2011 May 07)

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