Not That Close Encounter

Credit: Credit: Mark Deprest

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This photo was taken on the morning of August 5th at 08:00 UT and shows Jupiter & the Galilean (top to bottom Callisto, Ganymede, Io and Europa) and Venus. The Two Brightest Planets appear only 1.3 degrees apart from our point of view, but are really some 708,000,000 km away from each other. The bright star below Jupiter is mu Geminii and is 2.9 magnitude, the bright star above Venus is eta Geminii and is 3.3 magnitude. The photo was taken using my Pentax 35mm manual camera and prime focus through my 5" f/5 homebuilt Jaegers refractor. A 2 minute exposure with Fujicolor 400 Superia film.