Dance of planets before dawn

Steven Arthur Sweet of Lunar 101 Moon Book wrote: “The Sickle of Leo, Venus, Mars, Mercury and a crescent moon. Sept 17, 2017. Bloordale Park, Toronto.”

Eliot Herman in Tucson, Arizona caught the Mercury/ Mars conjunction on September 16. Moon inset for size comparison. He wrote: “Captured with a Vixen VSD telescope and a Nikon D810 camera mounted on a stationary tripod … Mercury above and Mars below.” By the way, both appear reddish, especially if you view larger. Mars really is red in color, but Mercury isn’t. In Mercury’s case, the red color often comes from seeing it low in the sky, where we peer at it through an extra thickness of Earth’s atmosphere (same reason a sunset or moonrise looks red).

David Rojas captured the planets on September 17 and wrote: “Conjunction of the moon, the planets Venus, Mars, Mercury and the star Regulus of this day, before dawn. Tomorrow these same stars will be seen in a closer conjunction. The following capture was made from the city of Guatemala. Greetings.”

September 17, 2017 moon and Venus … caught by Hope Carter in Martin, Michigan. She wrote: “The glow from the rising sun (still below the horizon here) painted the clouds a delicate shade of pink, making for a beautiful morning here in west Michigan to watch the moon and Venus rise together in the eastern sky.”