Mercury and Venus by Phone

[Ryderscope]

Proving that you can do astrophotography by phone. Image taken from my veranda at home in Glanmire, central west NSW Australia looking west towards the city of Bathurst. We see Mercury (top) and Venus (bottom) setting along with the sun at the end of a spring day. The clear sky bodes well for opening the observatory and starting an imaging run to capture data on our latest object.

Gear used here was an iPhone 8+. Only setting done on the phone was to turn the flash off. The EXIF header for the image shows that the camera settings were: ISO 160, Exp 1/4 sec, f1.8, focal length 4mm.

Some minor processing in Photoshop and Pixinsight to manage noise, a slight increase in colour saturation and to highlight the planets.

Link to image posting on Astrobin here. (https://astrob.in/k4354f/0/)

Clear skies,
Rodney.

[Saturnine]

I like the concept of easy imaging like this, capturing the moment without getting to complex.

[Ryderscope]

Well said Jeff. Sometimes you need to jump on to things quickly. If I had taken the time to get the DSLR and tripod out and set up the moment would have been lost forever :)