Mercury and Spica

I went for a tougher shot tonight: Mercury and Spica. These two objects had a fairly close encounter tonight. The first problem is that they were both very close to the horizon. The second problem is that I went to photograph sunset and forgot to take my binoculars making them very hard to find. I never did find them naked eye.

But right before Spica was about to disappear behind the mountain, I got them! Mercury is the brighter one on top and Spica is the dimmer one below and slightly to the left of Mercury (click to view the larger version of the pic if needed)

While I am at it, here is a gallery of a few of tonight’s sunset pics. No mock mirages tonight, but I love the way the Sun sets around that mountain peak.

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