The stars align

Every so often the stars align and everything magically falls in to place.

Except it wasn’t the stars. It was the moon, Venus, and Jupiter. But this was the closest they are going to be for another five years or so. (Wired; Scientific American; Astronomy Picture of the Day; What’s Up – Getting Closer, One Week to Go, The Great Conjunction Night, When Worlds Converge, Did you see the great conjunction; Space Disco; BBC – Smiling Sky)

So I took my camera out to the end of the road I live on, which also happens to be where the edge of town and the edge of a national forest meet. So it’s a good place to watch the stars, and it’s only six miles from here. 🙂

A police officer pulled into the parking lot behind me to check out a car that had apparently been parked there for too long. I got to tell him about what it was he was looking at. There was another nice old man out there taking pictures, he had a bigger camera. And we talked a bit about it and he looked at my pictures. Astronomers are a real nice group.

Venus is the “star” on the bottom. Jupiter is the other “star.” These three objects are the brightest objects in any night sky.

Other photos:

• 5:23 PM
• 6:11 PM
• the moon @ 6:15 PM

As I told the other man taking pictures, you can’t help but look up and be awed.