Parade of Planets... And a Milky Way shot

24megapixseal · Mar 7, 2025

We saw all the planets except Saturn, as it was too much in the setting sun glow....got photos of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter (and four moons), and our Moon (a super-sliver)....and while I was out there, just had to try for Orion's Nebula...

We located/found Neptune and Uranus with 12x binoculars and the Stellarium app, but didn't even try to capture a photo....cuz they're just tiny dots amongst a billion other tiny dots...

Then I set the alarm for 5:30am, before the 7:01 sunrise, to try and catch the Milky Way....it was rising, fairly horizontal...it hits vertical in the daylight hours during the winter months...my long exposure shot captured the golden glow of the sunrise reflecting off of some high thin clouds...I could not see the glow with my naked eye, so it was quite a pleasant surprise .

No tracking, no stacking, just old fashioned long exposure stuff....hope you enjoy and it inspires someone to try some astrophotography with whatever they have.

I used 2 lenses....a Nikon AF-S 16-80mm f2.8-4 VR and a Nikon AF-S 500mm f5.6 PF VR

Venus up high, then Mercury down low, just under Mercury was the sliver of the Moon