Two planets with two clusters – April 11, 2015

These days two beautiful gatherings are taking place up in the sky after sunset.

Venus is passing by the Pleiades (Messier 45) above the western horizon, while Jupiter, high in the sky, is also passing by another open star cluster, M44.

The following shots were acquired at an elevation of 1000meters, near Sinaia, on a night with good transparency, using three instruments (a 50mm Sigma Macro lens, a 100mm Canon Macro lens and a TS APO65mm F/6.5 Refractor). The camera was the Canon 550D at ISO 800 and 1600, with exposures of 60 to 200seconds on a NEQ6 equatorial mount.

The first shots are of planet Venus close to M45.

First, the 50mm view:

The 100mm view, showing some of the Pleiades blue reflection nebula:

And the 420mm two-shots mosaic:

And now for the Jupiter-M44 gathering…

The 50mm view:

And the 100mm view:

Nice coincidence having the two brightest planets in the sky passing by two of the brightest open star clusters in the same time-frame…