Contains:  Solar system body or event

Image of the day 01/13/2025

    The Beehive and the Retrograde Mars, Andre Vilhena

    The Beehive and the Retrograde Mars

    Image of the day 01/13/2025

      The Beehive and the Retrograde Mars, Andre Vilhena

      The Beehive and the Retrograde Mars

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      Description

      Earlier this year I was explaining to my young kids the retrograde motion of the planets and used a sky map app for the purpose to better show. During that, I noticed Mars would become retrograde in December near Cancer (interesting assertion for astrology...) but at the moment I didn't give much thought about it. However, a few days later I went to see again in more detail and realized it would become retrograde near the Beehive Cluster, just my preferred star cluster! Wow!

      So I went some months planning the photo - and it was not easy. For me to capture the FOV I wanted, I needed to make a 5x5 mosaic. Here's the planning at the time :

      Mars.PNG

      I wanted to capture Mars on Dec.6th, the beginning of the retrograde motion and a few weeks before and after - fine, settled the mosaics coordinates and Mars shooting dates. And then prayed... After all, December is not known for being a Summer month in the northern hemisphere so all of this could just simply go down by the drain.

      I started shooting on Nov.11th. The background mosaic was the easy part; Mars not so much but as it happens, I managed to shoot it much more nights and antecipated - after all, it doesn't require that much integration time and a slit between clouds was enough. Nice!

      Early in the start, I started realizing the FOV would be too large and M44 would be lost in it. So I cropped it quite a bit, reduced the lapse to less weeks and the spacing between each Mars to 5 days - poor planning and in the end, I throwed away almost 9 panels out of the 25! But the best was... managed to shoot Mars in the exact day of each position! Ok... the 5 days weren't arbitrary... 

      Anyway, here's the final result... It's not a flashy photo but I find it quite nice. And it showcases a phenomenon which intrigued the old civilizations and even today, I doubt the general public knows what it is, even if most people already heard it at a given moment. In a second version I made the annotation of it - be sure to have a look.

      For me, a perfect closure for my 2024 astrophotography season. I wish you all an Healthy and Prosperous 2025!!

      CS,
      André

      Some technical notes:
      Each panel is a 45 min RGB, with 60'' subexposures evenly split between channels.
      Each Mars photo is a 7.5 min RGB with 10'' subexposures evenly split between channels.

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        The Beehive and the Retrograde Mars, Andre Vilhena
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      The Beehive and the Retrograde Mars, Andre Vilhena

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