Take off with Natarajan

Teale Britstra snapped a brilliant photo of the planetary alignment from Australia.

Flickr user Teale Britstra told us about how he captured this shot from his location in suburban Brisbane, Australia:

“I was lucky to capture the conjunction yesterday, because I’ve had cloud on my western horizon for the last few days. Luckily, they cleared at the last minute, so I found a position in my front yard where I could see all three planets. That was harder than it sounds, because of all the surrounding trees, though I found a spot wedged between fence and a tree that worked.

From here in the southern hemisphere, the planets appear a little north of west just after sunset, though for my northern counterparts it will be a little south of west.

I think these conjunctions are great to watch over the course of a few nights, as they really give people an idea of the relative motions of the planets in 3-D space — a lesson in Solar System dynamics using nothing but the naked eye.”

Photo credit: Teale Britstra

For the past couple of days, Venus, Jupiter, and Mercury have been putting on a rare show in the western sky.

The three planets are in the middle of what is known as a planetary conjunction, when they appear unusually close together. The three planets won’t do this again until 2021.

The event peaked for viewers in the western hemisphere on Sunday, May 26. But the three planets will still be quite noticeable for the next week or so, even as they move away from each other.

We’ve collected several photos of the planetary conjunction taken from various locations around the world.  The above one is a photograph from Brisbane, Auatralia..