Venus and Jupiter, March 2012

In the spring of 2012, Jupiter and Venus had a very nice conjunction in the evening, relatively high in a dark sky.  From the resonance in Jupiter's 12 year orbit around the Sun and Venus' 8 year cycle, we see that this is a very close repeat of what happened in March of 1988, 24 years prior to this year.  I observed that conjunction from my old home where I grew up in Hanover County, VA, while on leave between my tour of duty in Germany and military schooling in Fort Gordon, GA.  As I recall, I didn't get any good pictures from that event, so I hoped to be able to make up for it this time.  The next one of these events will be in 2036, so these better have turned out well LOL.

One problem, as with most Jupiter-Venus conjunctions in a dark sky, is that Venus is often a good amount off of the ecliptic, so usually they are not very close in the sky.  That's the situation here, although they're still impressive as a "double planet" in a dark sky, at which time they command attention even from people who normally don't notice the sky much.  I took these pictures from three different locations in the Fredericksburg, VA area.  The first image, dated March 6, was taken from Chancellorsville battlefield park; the second, from March 11, was taken from Wilderness battlefield park, and the third, dated March 14, was acquired at Patriot Park in Spotsylvania County.  The first two images are with a 50mm lens, while the March 14 image is with a 24mm lens, much more wide angle.  Special thanks go to my friend and former work colleague, Jim Allewelt, for his processing of the second image, taken on March 11.