Time and Back

With Jupiter, Venus and the Moon looming over the western San Francisco sky, I took 28 exposures of about 300 seconds each beginning at sunset (6:35 PM) and ending after all three bodies had set beyond the western horizon (8:51 PM). I’ve read that this alignment is known as the Jupiter-Venus conjunction.

Before I took the first long exposure, I made sure to do a quick capture of the sky to show how it looked without trails. Stacking these photos created an interesting result: the beautiful orange sunset which I took early on (and was in the first 4 photos) ended up dominating, creating this unique result that looks as if the stars were rising (left to right) rather than setting (right to left). I also had a few hiccups along the way including having to replace my battery which is visible about 3/4 of the way down the star trail.