Nashville Four Planet Skyline
Credit & Copyright:
Larry Koehn
So far this February,
evening skies have been blessed with
a glorious Moon and three bright planets;
Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn.
But just last week, on January 30th,
an extreme wide-angle lens allowed
astrophotographer Larry Koehn to capture this twilight view
of Moon and four
planets above Nashville, Tennessee, USA.
These major
solar system
bodies lie along the ecliptic plane and
so follow a diagonal line through the picture.
Starting near the upper left corner is bright
Jupiter, which takes
on a slightly triangular shape due to the lens distortion.
Just below and right of Jupiter
is Saturn.
Continuing along the diagonal toward the lower right
is an overexposed, six day
old Moon
and brilliant Venus seemingly
embedded in clouds.
The fourth planet pictured is Mercury.
Notoriously hard to see from planet Earth because it never
wanders far from the Sun,
Mercury is visible just above
the lower right corner.
The line from Jupiter to Mercury spans about 92 degrees
across the Nashville sky.