Mercury, Crescent Moon and Swarming Taurids

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Before there was the Moon Venus Sunset gatherings, there was the Moon Mercury Sunrise gathering. Mercury being so close to the Sun we don't get to see it that often, May was the last time I was able to image Mercury, that time it was during a Sunset, image below. Well just last week I was able to capture a beautiful 3% Crescent Moon and Mercury complete with jet contrails, image above.

Lots of celestial stuff going on this month. Right now we have swarming Taurids till November 17th, that's right, apparently the the Earth is going through a swarm of space debris left behind by comet 2P/Encke, we go through the debris field left behind by comet 2P/Encke every year producing the Taurid Meteor shower, but this year is a swarming debris field, producing more then average meteors. Also the Leonid Meteor Shower peaks November 17, for both showers look to the East around Midnight for the shows to start. On November 13th we have a conjunction of the Full Moon and the Pleiades Star Cluster, look to the NE around 7:00pm EST for this conjunction.

So after my whiney crybaby complaining poor me I have no entries in my Find And Photograph The Daytime Moon Contest gonna go to my room and eat my worms post a lot of people sent in their photos, cool, problem is I have to judge them now, geez I never think things through, so unbenounced to my wife, she is going to help me judge them and choose a first and second place winner. I told her the other day I had some entries in my blog contest, she gives me that YIKES look and says "You have a blog?", just kidding, she knows I have a blog, but she still gave me that YIKES look, come to think of it I get that look a lot, especially when I told her 1st place wins 50 pairs of Hanna Montana/ Miley Cyrus 3D glasses. I will announce the winners and post all the entries in my next post, either Monday or Tuesday next week.

I'll leave you now with a Crescent Moon and Jupiter gathering animation I took a couple nights ago, see if you can spot Jupiter.