During the days of February 22 through 25 the extraordinarily close passage of Venus and Jupiter was and outstanding object in the evening sky. The following sequence of three pictures was takes with a 35mm camera equipped with a 50mm lens on a simple tripod.
The first picture was taken from the Tri-Valley Stargazer observing spot the Hidden Hills Observatory on February 22. The following pictures were taken February 23 and 25 from my home in Fremont CA. The closest approach fell in February 23 during US west cost daytime hours. Venus is usually easy to find during the daytime with a telescope. Jupiter then became visible as a faint disk in the same field as Venus. The closest approach is captured on the following picture.
Venus is the bright spot on top and Jupiter is the faint disk below Venus. Visually Jupiter showed the major cloud bands, but the picture could not catch those. The picture was taken with a 80mm f8 APO refractor and 2x tele converter.
In the evening of that same day (February 23) the two planets were still close enough together to fit into the same high power eyepiece field of view. A long exposure has been chosen in this picture to show the moons of Jupiter (3 visible). The long exposure would not allow cloud details of jupiter to be visible.
Photo Feb. 23 1999 with 80mm APO refractor f=640mm 2x tele converter on Kodak GPY400 5seconds. (Sibylle Froehlich)
To bring out detail in Jupiter's clouds a short exposure was taken. The planet is now no longer overexposed and cloud bands are visible.
Photo Feb. 23 1999 with 80mm APO refractor f=640mm 4x tele converter on Kodak Ektachrome 100 0.5seconds. (Gert Gottschalk)
An enlarged cut out of the above image shows Jupiter. With the short exposure and the enlargement the cloud details become visible.
Photo Feb. 23 1999 with 80mm APO refractor f=640mm 4x tele converter
on Kodak Ektachrome 100 0.5seconds, enlarged. (Gert Gottschalk)