Distant Dawns

 

Planet Parade, June 26, 2022; 4:45 a.m.

The night of June 25^th, 2022, presented a rare opportunity for earthbound observers to view all the naked eye solar system planets at once. As a bonus, the crescent moon would be out close to the ecliptic making it a truly rare alignment. 

Up to three planets at a time are a relatively common sight I had recorded before but all five would be a personal first. In the run up to this day, the images poured in from various astro-photographers on social media. They looked beautiful, but also more similar than not. 

To change things up a bit, I planned to capture the event in two different ways. The first, would be a customary panoramic still as seen from the east facing window of my bedroom. The second would be a timelapse which would catch all the action.

 

Nightfall

For the timelapse, I set up a wide-field action camera to (hopefully) span the whole scene. And then since hope wasn't a good strategy for a one off event, double checked that the field of view covered the 115 degrees of azimuth between the farthest objects. I had used the device once before for a lunar eclipse, hence knew it produces acceptable results in low light. This camera sat on a little metal clamp that clung on to the ledge of the window, outside the glass pane. A hook up to the house power ensured it would not run out of juice through five hours of imaging through the night.

It was 11 p.m. The sky was clear as predicted. Saturn had just risen above the eastern horizon. If it were not for modern day ephemerides, it would be hard to guess that this night was going to be different. 

I put the camera to work, taking a snapshot every few minutes. Then having set an alarm for 4 a.m., went off to catch a few hours of sleep. 

Planet Parade

One look out of the window pre-dawn, confirmed that the scene had completely transformed. Instead of just one, four bright points of light and a thin sliver of the moon, now adorned the eastern sky in a sweeping arc. This was the plane of the ecliptic. Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were neatly arranged in the right sequence of increasing distance from the sun like in a school text book.

To the far left, Venus, appeared as a piercing bright yellow point of light low on the horizon. It could be easily mistaken for the landing lights of a large aircraft headed for the nearby airport some 20 miles away. To its right, a waning crescent moon at only 12% illumination hung in the sky. Bright enough to announce its presence but not enough to overpower the scene. About the angular distance between the tips of the thumb to the little finger stretched wide and at arm's length, was Mars. Visibly dimmer and ruddy, clearly stood out against the background of the obscure stars of Pisces. A few finger-widths to its right, was Jupiter. From the far reaches of the outer solar system - about 600 million miles, it reflected back the rays of an invisible sun that was still below the horizon.  Above the silhouetted roof of the neighbor's house - at nearly a billion miles, was Saturn. At that distance, the reflected light that illuminated its disc was a full 90 minutes old when it reached us. Its faint glint could be easily mistaken for a star if you didn’t know better. 

These, were the subjects of study for Johannes Kepler. The 16^th century German astronomer, who, using only positional astronomy well before Newton had defined gravity, had given us the precise laws of planetary motion we still use today.  

The sky above the treetops was picking up the first shades of orange. The eastern sky now spanned a range of brightness several "f-stops" apart,  sufficient to give photographers a cold sweat. The warm orange of the golden hour crept towards Venus to my left. The deep blues of astronomical twilight persisted near Saturn on far right. And yet, the final piece of the grand puzzle, Mercury, was missing.  

Evanescent

Mercury being one of the inner planets can only be seen at dawn and dusk, for a short span of time. But on this specific day, it would be at maximum elongation from the sun. That meant it would remain visible for the longest amount of time on the eastern horizon before the growing light from the rising sun washed it out of view. I had never visually seen mercury except a silhouette during a solar transit a few years ago. So I had only a vague imagination about what to look for. 

It was now 4:30, well past its predicted rising time of 4:16 a.m. I scanned the treetops in the area impatiently first with naked eyes and then with binoculars through the second floor window. It was supposedly four degrees above the horizon at this point, but nowhere in sight. A nagging thought crept in. Was it smaller or fainter than what I thought and perfectly blended in the sky - or maybe was at a slightly different spot? It seemed a real possibility that I may have actually missed the narrow opportunity window of seeing it on the day of best visibility.

I headed downstairs to the backyard and stood outside on the grass in the pre-dawn air taking in the view. Mercury or not, this scene, must've been straight out of Kepler's dreams. It had not presented itself in the last 18 years, and will not until 2040. It was a calming thought. And a humbling sight.  

Pale White Dot

Heading back into the house I walked up the stairs, paused at the top to turn around and scan the tree tops one last time with the binoculars before going back in. As I panned slowly from the left to right over the jagged lines of treetops, at one spot, I froze. There, against the amber glow of the sky, and bracketed by two strands of clouds, was a very pale white dot. 

Mercury. 

A smile must’ve slowly appeared on my face, for that’s how it felt, as I held up the instrument to the eyes. I could not see it with naked eyes but through two pieces of clear glass was close enough. I looked away, and looked again, and then again. It was no mistake. Clear as bell, it stood out against the quickly brightening sky. It was perhaps the most delicate planetary scene I had ever seen. Like a speck of dust on the wing of a butterfly. 

Distant Dawns

It was about 4:40 a.m. I took in the sight for a few more minutes - before rushing back in. It was now a race against the sun barreling towards the horizon. A few minutes remained to capture the panorama before this surreal scene was all washed away into another routine day of bright sunshine and earthly bustle.  As I clicked away with my trusty SLR from my upper floor perch - I felt a tenuous camaraderie with these far flung floating rocks. Somewhere on all those distant worlds, as on ours at this moment, lit by the rays of the same host star, it was dawn. 

Over the next several days I strung together the footage into a short video clip. It turned out to be a bit better at conveying the experience than what is possible with a single image.