Morning Roll Call

Rising before dawn on Saturday mornings isn't necessarily common practice for most folks, but the clear skies and a rare celestial conjunction made it more than worth the while on October 10, 2015.
Lining up in an arc from ground up were four planets and a thin crescent moon. Both these images look east from White Road, about a half-mile east of North Alburnett Road, and about three miles north of Marion, Iowa. A family dog from a nearby farmstead did not care for my presence and barked into the darkness nearly the entire time I was there. The above image, shot at 6:15 am CDT, is a 3-second exposure at f/5.6, 500 ISO and 22mm focal length.

This image, captured five minutes later, is a closeup view of the lineup, which includes from bottom left to top right: the planet Mercury (magnitude 0.54), the moon, Jupiter (-1.74), Mars (1.76) and Venus (-4.47). It is a 4-second exposure at f/8, 1600 ISO and 35mm focal length. A chilly air temperature of 41 degees F made for numb fingers! Nikon D5000 DSLR camera.