Moon and Planets, 1st May at Avoca Beach

[iceman (Mike)]

Here's my attempt from Sunday morning.

Unfortunately although it was clear overhead and to the west, a horrible cloud bank hovered in the East.

I did get a view of the Moon, Venus and Mercury, but never got to see Jupiter or Mars. And when the nice dawn light came, so did more clouds, which ruined any chance of getting nice images.

The only ones I were able to capture were when it was dark, which meant long exposures @ ISO3200, and noisy images. Also, the sea was very high and very rough so I couldn't get around on the rocks at Avoca - so I captured most of them from the sand, and my tripod slipped during the exposures. So a lot of my images have little trails.

All in all, not a great outing.

Moon and Planets Conjunction, 1st May 2011

Anyway, here they are. Will try again during the month and at the end of May.

[m@s (Marc)]

Great, Mike !
This serie above seaside is superb.
Lighting on rocks and soft texture of water with long exposure are really nice.
Bravo

I'd be pleased and proud to produce such "not great outing" !

m@s

[Dennis]

Beautiful photos Mike – the 1st one is an absolute cracker with the composition, dreamy looking wave movement, luminescent shallows, eerie cloudbank and the colours on the cliffs.

Cheers

Dennis

[Deeno]

Just lovely Mike.

A nice warm up for the next attempt

[StephenM (Stephen)]

I love the first two Mike. Looks like a great location for early morning conjunctions!

Cheers,
Stephen

[Liz]

Still great images Mike.

[SkyViking (Rolf)]

Very nice. Especially the first image looks great with the interesting water effect.

[Paul Haese]

The first is the pick of the bunch. Lighting is very good and so too is the composition.

[h0ughy (David)]

nice work Mike

[wayne anderson (Wayne)]

Great photo's Mike considering the average conditions we have had with clouds, now I can see what I have been missing due to cloud cover. I really like the first shot and the colours of the rock on the third shot, well done.

[Quark (Trevor)]

Like them Mike, never mind the conjunction, quite like the third image particularly the colour with the light on the rocks.

Cheers
Trevor

[AstroTourist (Terry)]

Gorgeous images Mike. Well done.
What is the light source for illumination of the rocks and water (especially in the first image which is my favourite)?
Rgds,
Terry

[Inmykombi (Geoff)]

Well worth the effort to get to the Coast for the photos Mike.

The Colour in the images is great.

Good work.

Geoffro

[seeker372011 (Narayan)]

joining in the chorus..great sequence

[Matt Wastell (Matt)]

Sweet!

[iceman (Mike)]

Thanks guys, your feedback means a lot to me because I wasn't really happy with these when I first looked at them.

I almost threw them all away.

I guess I was just disappointed at not getting the whole conjunction and missing the favourable dawn light.

Originally Posted by AstroTourist

Gorgeous images Mike. Well done.
What is the light source for illumination of the rocks and water (especially in the first image which is my favourite)?
Rgds,
Terry

Thanks Terry - the first is my favourite too.
On Avoca Beach, there's a big-arse sodium flood light that shines out onto the beach. I was further to the South so it wasn't overwhelming, but provided just enough illumination on long exposure shots.

The attached image shows a shot from an Avoca Beach series I took in early 2009 where the flood light was casting long shadows - horrible place to try and do dawn photography.

It provided some nice lighting on Sunday though.

The dawn shots I got on Sunday when the sun rose, on the other hand, I *am* very happy with. Some of my facebook friends will have seen one of them already.
Hope to post those tomorrow.

[cookie8 (Vincent)]

Nice as always Mike. I like all of them.

[alexch (Alex)]

Nice series. The first one is a cracker!