Jupiter and Mercury Were Bashful, but Venus Wasn't

On an evening with the possibility of seeing five planets in alignment, plus the moon, I would only view two. Jupiter and Mercury were setting precariously close to horizon and still within the sun's glare, and unfortunately clouds along the horizon blocked their viewing. Mars was the other observable planet, near the moon, but it was high in the sky and out of the camera's viewfinder. Uranus can only been seen by the naked eye in very dark skies, and it was light enough in this setting that even the camera could not resolve it without resorting to very long exposures. That left Venus, front and center and blazing away at magnitude -4.02. In the image above Venus hangs over the afterglow of the day's sunset, seen at 8:07 pm CDT, Tuesday, March 28, 2023, from Lowe Park in Marion, Iowa. Metal effigy park sculptures can be seen in the foreground. 0.4 second exposure at f/2.8, ISO 250, 11mm focal length. Nikon D7200 DSLR camera.