Evening Planetary Companions

The planets Venus and Mars were prominent in the western sky at 8:07 PM CDT, Wednesday, March 11, 2015 with the fading glow of the sun still on the horizon. Venus (upper right) shone like a brilliant jewel at magnitude -3.98, with Mars (below and right of Venus) at 1.31. This image was captured as an eleven second exposure at f/9, 1000 ISO and 26mm focal length. Nikon D5000 DSLR. The location was Alburnett Road (W58), .3-mile north of County Home Road, just north of Marion, Iowa. Foreground illumination provided by the tail lights of my vehicle. Air temperature was 42 degrees F.