25 May 2020

A beautiful new moon hung over Heptonstall in the twilight last night, with Venus glowing red off to its left. I grabbed a few hand-held photos, which turned out remarkably unblurry, bearing in mind I was using a long lens with a ridiculously slow shutter-speed of ⅙ of a second.

It was only while I was processing the photos this morning that I realised I’d also managed to bag Mercury (faint dot, just right of centre). My first ever definite sighting of Mercury—if spotting it the next day in a photograph counts.

New moon, Mercury and Venus setting over Heptonstall

Richard Carter

Richard Carter is a writer and photo­grapher living in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire. He is currently working on a book about looking at the world through Darwin’s eyes.Website · Newsletter · Mastodon · Facebook

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