We were greeted by this beautiful sky this morning. Below, the thin waning crescent Moon shines through the painted clouds at 6:21 AM August 27, 2011:
I’ve got a bunch of Moon photos waiting that I’ve taken recently, but I’ll save them for when I have more time. Meanwhile, here’s the Moon in conjunction with Mars on the morning of August 25, 2011:
Finally, here are Jupiter and its four largest Moons, the “Galileans” since they were discovered by Galileo 401 years ago. This week Earth and Jupiter began about 422 million miles apart and closed in to about 414 million miles. At opposition on October 28, 2011, Jupiter will be about 369 million miles away (a safe distance, John!), then begin drawing further away once again.
Except for the binocular shot, all with the usual 8″ reflector telescope and LG VX8360 cell phone camera. All photos clickable for larger view.
In Touch With the Sky 