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Astronomy Image of the Day
The Alignment of Mercury, Venus, Neptune and the Moon above the Australia Telescope.
The Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) for March 10, 2008, is the alignment of the planets Mercury, Venus and Neptune with the Moon as seen from Narrabri, Australia, on the morning of March, 6, 2008.
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| 1. The Alignment of Mercury, Venus, Neptune and the Moon above the Australia Telescope (looking east). Neptune is not visible in the twilight. |
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| 2. The Alignment of Mercury, Venus, Neptune and the Moon above the Australia Telescope (looking east). |
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3. Four elements of the Australia Telescope Compact Array (looking west). |
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| 4. An element of the Compact Array of the Australia Telescope (looking west) |
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In the images 1 and 2 Venus is above the Moon, and Mercury is above Venus. Neptune is just below the Moon but invisible in the twilight. The foreground is three antenna of the Compact Array (CA) of the Australia Telescope National Facility (ATNF). They are looking south observing the extended radio structure of Centaurus A, the closest radio galaxy. The CA consists of six 22 m antennae aligned east-west over six kilometres. The other three antennae are behind the camera, and up to 5 kilometres away. For more details of the ATNF Compact Array see http://www.narrabri.atnf.csiro.au/. These photographs were taken by Dr Graeme L. White of the JCU Centre for Astronomy (Glen Cozens assisted with the planet alignment images). Dr White was at the CA site observing with the MOPRA telescope (see http://www.narrabri.atnf.csiro.au/mopra/) as part of the JCU HOPS (H(2)O galactic Plane Survey) program. All images were taken with an Olympus camera; the alignment photos were taken using a tripod.
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