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My Inner Science Geek Says Post This...Submitted by WhitesCreek on September 20, 2012 - 6:03pm.
I love this stuff! Astronomers around the world look up in the sky and take pictures to share with us. Even setting aside the technical expertise required to take these shots, there is an art to showing us what they see. This is the contest for astronomy photography and I don't agree with first place though I think it's a wonderful shot of our universe. What picture do you think should win?
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This photograph is the most interesting to me because it appears that we are looking away from the sun at two more-distant planets than earth, which is not the case. From the sun, Venus is the second planet, earth is third and Jupiter fifth. So, interesting shot of a complicated dynamic. I assume Venus is the larger of the two discs, but not certain.
That is the shot I liked best as well. I think Jupiter is the larger disc. Venus tends to show up as a crescent if it's in focus. This is a difficult shot from a technical aspect. I like that it includes the astronomer.
Showing the astronomer and his perspective is why it's interesting. Leaving the earth out would mitigate the technical aspect you described. So Jupiter is the bigger planet? I know it is in real life, it's just so far away that I thought... Plus, Venus is always the brightest object in the sky when visible. Looks like a giant star.
I read the caption again and now I am just not sure which is Venus. The disc shape may be a lens distortion, since Venus always shows us a crescent at night.
Unless I messed up :), here are some rough thoughts.
During the conjunction, "Venus is about 67 million miles (108 million km) from Earth while Jupiter is about 535 million miles (861 million km) away" (Link...). Jupiter's diameter (about 140,000 km) is over 11 times that of Venus (a little over 12,000 km).
Because perceived size falls off as the square of the distance and the ratio of the squared distances is about 64--big enough to overwhelm Jupiter's 11x diameter advantage--Venus has to have the larger perceived diameter.
See also: Link...
-- OneTahiti
... it's a matter or perspective.
Sorry, folks, it's Friday and I just had to! :-)
RB