Planets Passing in the Night, June 30, 2015

It stayed clear long enough here for a good look at the close conjunction of Jupiter and Venus tonight. Here are two telescopic views: a bright one in which you can see Jupiter's four Galilean moons (notice that two of them are really close together!), and a darker one that lets you see the shapes and colors of the planets, especially Venus's lovely crescent shape.

Captured using my Canon 6D at the prime focus of my 8-inch f/10 Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope.  ISO 1600, 0.6 seconds for the image at the left; and ISO 400, 1/50 second for the image at the right.  Images captured between 8:57 and 9:02 pm EDT on June 30, 2015.