Mars-Saturn-M44 Conjunction (June 17, 2006)
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On June 17, 2006, the planets Mars and Saturn, along with the large open cluster M44 (The Beehive Cluster) appeared in the evening sky about a half hour before the grouping set. I captured it (not very well) with my new 600 mm lens.
| Object | Conjunction Between Saturn, Mars, and M44 |
| Common Name | Conjunction Between Saturn, Mars, and the Beehive Cluster |
| Date, Time, & Moon | June 17, 2006 @ 9:30 PM; No Moon |
| Location | SBO Telescope at CU Boulder |
| Optics | 600 mm f/9.6 camera lens |
| Camera | Canon Digital Rebel 350D XT |
| Exposure Details | 2.25 minutes; 9 15-second frames stacked; ISO 100 |
| Optical Correction | No Dark-Correction; 2-D polynomial flatframe corrections |
| Camera Position | Clock Drive Mount |
| Guiding | Passive Clock Drive |
| Processing Details | IDL - Flatframe correction and image addition PhotoShop CS - Alignment, Levels Adjustment, Unsharp Mask, and Gaussian Blur |
| Magnitude Depth | Complete to 9.5th, down to 10.5 in some places. |
| Field of View | approx. 2° |
| Notes | None. |