Another Blue Planet

Much is said about how Earth is the "Blue Planet." There is even a well-known nature mini-series by that name. But Earth is not the only "blue planet" in our solar system. Another is Uranus. In the photo above, you can see the tiny blue fleck of Uranus to the upper left of Jupiter and its moons -- it was exposed specifically to reveal Uranus' color. (Click on the image for a better look.) Here is a close-up:




BTW, this makes seven -- the number of planets I have photographed. According to "Mary's Violet Eyes Make Joey Stay Up Nights -- Phooey!", I only have two left: Neptune and Pluto. Oh yeah, that's right: Pluto has been robbed of its planetary status. But I still think of it as a planet. How else could we give voice to Joey's crush on Mary? :-)

Moon, Uranus, Jupiter's Moons; Single Exposure

This is a single-exposure photo showing the Moon, Uranus, and Jupiter with three of its moons. (Click on the image for a better view.) I had been trying for awhile to get Jupiter's moons and our Moon in the same shot with the same exposure, and the clouds finally cooperated Wednesday night (9/22/2010). This time there was a bonus: Uranus.

Here is an annotated version:



I have taken prior photos using clouds to filter the Moon's overwhelming light for a single-exposure shot, e.g. this one for the Moon and Mars. However, today's blog entry is unique in that it shows two planets (Uranus and Jupiter with its moons) together with our Moon where you can see surface features rather than being completely blown out.

Exposure was 0.5 seconds, f/5.6, ISO 800 using a Canon 400D DSLR with a 70-300 zoom lens set to 135mm. Post-processing of the RAW image was done with Digital Photo Professional v3.8.

The full-resolution version can be downloaded from my Flickr page. Or, get it directly from here.

The legendary Oregon winter clouds will soon obscure most skyward sights, but this time the clouds did me a great favor, providing a Celestial Neutral Density Filter. :-)