June 24th 2022 Planetary Alignment

Before sunrise on Friday June 24th, 2022, I took some photos of the planetary alignment. From left to right, Venus, the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn were visible. The Moon was to the East, and Saturn was all the way over to the South so I couldn't get them all in the same image. I didn't have a clear enough view of the horizon to see Mercury, but it was there ahead of Venus in the procession.

There were a few clouds occasionally covering Venus, but I was fortunate enough to get some shots including Venus while it was still dark. The sunrise was brightening by the minute as the clouds disappeared.

I used DxO PureRAW, GIMP, and Darktable to process these images.

Single Frame Without Saturn

Here is my shot of Venus, the Moon, Mars, and Jupiter:

I shot this with my Canon EOS R6, with the RF 24-105mm F/4-7.1 lens at 24mm, using f/5.0, ISO 800, and a 2-second exposure. The Moon was exposed separately (ISO 100, 1/8 second exposure) and composited in. I spent a while fiddling with the Moon here. My better-exposed Moon shot was taken later when no clouds were visible, so I couldn't easily blend in the Moon and surrounding clouds (which were way over-exposed in the 2-second image). I should have of course taken bracketed exposures at the same time, which would have made compositing in the Moon much easier.

Either way I'm happy with the shot I got. The straight line these bright objects made in the sky was remarkable.

2-Panel With Saturn

I used a 2-panel image to include Saturn:

The two images were shot at f/5.0, ISO 160, for a 1-second exposure. They were shot a bit later than the above image. The sky was brighter and only a few background stars are visible, but the clouds had dissipated.

On a tripod, I panned the camera right to take the Saturn shot. I struggled using GIMP's "Perspective Transform" to align the right-hand Saturn frame while keeping the ground horizontal and the tree silhouettes plumb, but I think I got it pretty close. Using GIMP's "Perspective Transform" and "Handle Transform," then merging the photos by painting a gradient on a layer mask worked in this case, but using panorama software, or perhaps astrophotography software with good auto-alignment, would be something to try for future multi-panel shots.