The Moon, Mercury and the Pleiades: a precious sight – 2 May 2022
The Moon, planet Mercury and the Pleiades met in the evening sight, soon after sunset. The vision was awesome, here we share a couple of images.
A sharp Moon crescent shines with planet Mercury, while the Pleiades join the show. 2 May 2022.
The sky is keeping us very busy, recently. We admired the four planets parade plus the Moon at dawn, but now it is planet Mercury asking for our attention, now that the Moon is back in the early evening sky. Plus a precious bonus: yesterday, the Pleiades, the famous star cluster, were in the same spot of the sky, offering an excellent imaging opportunity.
I planned to see the show from the roof of my house in Rome, Italy, and I was ready to go soon after sunset. My imaging gear included a Canon 5D mIV DSLR body + a EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens, used at 200mm and f/2.8. All this was fixed on a sturdy tripod. But the sky was not cooperating too much: plenty of clouds were up there, with some rain falling exactly at the time I planned to start imaging. But I decided to wait for a few minutes and… the sky rewarded me with an awesome experience!
The Moon, Mercury and the Pleiades are slowly setting. 2 May 2022.
The Moon crescent and its earthshine were an obvious sight and planet Mercury was very easy to spot, too. Pleiades, however, were not directly visible and I could note them only on my images.
I hope the images above will bring to you both my emotions and feelings.
Now I’m waiting for all the five planets visible at a glance next June!
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