• Travel,  World at night

    Starry nights

    16. Oktober 2021 / No Comments

    The nights in Ticino and now in Mürren were starry. The winter constellation of Orion is near sunrise in the south, which allows a “late” rising. This morning I was able to capture Orion with the red color of its nebula in the center of the dagger. So dark was it on the local helicopter landing site of Mürren. Somewhat to the left of the top of the Jungfrau one could see a faint zodiacal light.

    Starry night at Mürren (Sirius and Orion) © Julian Köpke
    Weak zodiac light over Jungfrau © Julian Köpke
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  • General,  Landscape,  World at night

    Great Conjunction

    16. Dezember 2020 / No Comments

    Thanks to the hint of a friend, I was again aware of the rare constellation of the approach of the two planets that I had observed during the summer. The 21st by December, Jupiter and Saturn were to be only 6 arc minutes apart. Unfortunately, the weather forecasts are not favorable, which is why I hardly figured out a chance to see anything about it at all.

    Unexpectedly, the clouds disappeared during the day to retreat th the edge of the Rhine Rifle, where we were allowed to see them in the evening. At the beginning of our photo session we watched the Rhine Valley with our bright and long reaching optics.

    Power plant Mannheim © Julian Köpke
    Nightfall over Cathedral of Speyer, distant view with my spotting scope. Every now and then birds were flying through the scene. © Julian Köpke

    First Lorenz discovered the crescent moon in the clouds. It could have sunk our courage, in fact as darkness fell conditions steadily improved.

     

    Waxing crescent moon, 48h after New Moon. © Julian Köpke

    At the time, it was still too bright to see the planets.

    Waxing crescent moon, 48h old. We were watching out for the planets Jupiter and Saturn that are close by 6' these days (Great conjunction). © Julian Köpke

    Finally we managed to take pictures of the crescent moon with the the planets Jupiter (the brighter and bigger one of both) and Saturn close to each other before the increasingly yellow moon disappeared in the dark clouds. There was even a little of the ashen moonlight to be seen. Wonderful.

    Yesterday, crescent moon right below Saturn and Jupiter © Julian Köpke
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