1 city, 1 Moon, 4 planets

[troypiggo]

I was so looking forward to attempting to capture this conjunction of Mars, Venus, Saturn, Mercury, and the Moon. I had checked the weather, all was supposed to be clear, planned (in my head) where I'd be shooting from here in Brisbane and the look I was after. Then reality kicked in...

While the night was clear, the wind was absolutely howling. I had to weigh my tripod down to stop it all blowing over. It was freezing cold and I hadn't packed a jumper. The light pollution was worse than I anticipated. The location I had was not quite giving me the relationship between the conjunction and city that I had in my head. And at the scale of image here, not sure the actual planets are that visible :(

What I did kind of like about this was the glow from Brisbane's equivalent of the London Eye kind of pointing up towards the conjunction. Light pollution helped?! What?! :)

Much respect to guys like Stephen Mudge who do this sort of shot all the time and make it look easy. It isn't.

Anyway, here's the first of a few different perspectives I attempted. Might tinker with some of the other shots/exposures and see if I can get something more to be happy with. Image on the right is labelled.

[Liz]

Very nice indeed Troy. :thumbsup:

[Dennis]

A great effort Troy – these things are not easy due to enormous range of brightness between not only each celestial object, but the foreground when trying to produce a pleasing setting.

I think you have succeeded admirably, especially given the horrible, windy conditions. Great shooting!:thumbsup:

Mr. Mudge is indeed a one man conjunction band, with a prodigious talent and output!:)

Cheers

Dennis

[troypiggo]

Thanks Liz and Dennis.

I meant to mention that you can see how windy it was by the fact that all the highrises are leaning all over the place :lol:

[Octane]

lol @ leaning due to wind.

I was going to say, it's like something out of Inception!

Good on you for having a go, anyway, mate. I almost killed myself when I went rolling down Mount Ainslie this evening after I lost my footing thanks to a wind gust -- the rocks were all covered in moss and it was so slippery. I'm just so thankful that I didn't get too badly hurt or that my camera/lenses didn't go for the ride with me.

H

[StephenM]

Nice work Troy! That came out well. I can't quite work out where you took it from - is that up near the city end of the Story Bridge? I thought I might run in to you on the Goodwill Bridge this evening, but didn't see you. I got a few shots, just about to post the first.

(And thanks for the kind words Troy and Dennis - much appreciated!)

Cheers,
Stephen

[RobF]

Great effort Troy. I'm sure your shots are still far in excess of what most of us could have hoped to get none the less. Heroic stuff too taking on that wind! I just left the scope cover on last night - cruel when the sky was so clear.

[hotspur]

Looks great Troy-well done,just one question-why does parliament house building look like its leaning to right?Not that I find it a issue.

cheers Chrsi

[desler]

May not of turned out quite the way you planned, but the obvious planning and execution in difficult circumstances paid off! Nicely done!

Darren

[troypiggo]

:) Thanks mate. Still getting used to the 5DII/17-40 combo. Does distort more than I thought it would. Inception - haven't seen it yet but understand what you mean from seeing the ads :)

Hope you didn't get too injured for your troubles.



Could only afford to get out on Thurs night unfortunately. I'll take a look at your shots now.

This was taken from the top of the cliffs on River Terrace where they do the rock-climbing. Kangaroo Point?



Thanks mate. I think I was only out there due more to idiocy than heroicism. :)



Thanks mate. Just due to the wide lens distortion. I tried to blame the wind for making the buildings lean, but Humayun wouldn't believe me.



Thanks mate :)