Moon, Mars, Venus Setting Over Mount Whitney

Here's another photo of the Moon – Mars- Venus conjunction setting over Mt Whitney in "blue hour" twilight light a couple of weeks ago. Astronomer +Philip Plait has a nice write-up on the event his Bad Astronomy blog on +Slate, which features the time-lapse video I created:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2015/03/08/moon_mars_venus_sunset_appulse_video.html

The moon was actually in a thin crescent phase, but being positioned towards the sun, as seen from the moon the sun was illuminating a nearly "full earth", which provided a lot of "earth shine" to illuminate the portion of the moon's face not directly lit by the sun. It's a pretty cool phenomenon to see, best seen a couple of days before or after the new moon, when the moon is close to the horizon in morning or evening twilight.

I anticipated this alignment with Mount Whitney using +The Photographer's Ephemeris , as I did a moon rise over Mono lake tufa and a lunar eclipse setting behind jagged peaks during the G+/Panoramio Eastern Sierra photowalk in June 2012: https://plus.google.com/107459220492917008623/stories/cdfdaf4b-4df7-3549-a9a7-3f02ea6ee5f7

#science #sciencesunday #astronomy #astrophotography #landscapephotography
More of my astrophotography videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/JeffSullivanPhoto