ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY CAPTURE - Morning conjunctions

A month of planetary encounters offers opportunities to test your astro imaging skills

- Pete Lawrence

There are a number of interesting morning meetings of planets in April, ending with a spectacular conjunction of Venus and Jupiter. Both planets will be bright, but their altitudes and positions are not ideal at this time of year due to the shallow angle of the morning ecliptic with the eastern horizon. As such, you'll need good photographic skills (including adaptability, the most important skill of all) to capture this and the other conjunctions that can be seen throughout the month.

On 3 April, a 6%-illuminated waxing crescent Moon sits close to Uranus, which is always close to the naked-eye threshold from a dark-sky location. On the evening of 3 April, Uranus will appear 1.10 from the Moon's centre. The difference in brightness between the two will make this conjunction hard to capture well: if you set an exposure for the Moon's crescent then Uranus won't show, and if you set an exposure for Uranus you will overexpose the Moon.

A tricky meeting between Saturn and Mars occurs on the morning of 5 April, with both planets rising just 80 minutes before the Sun. They will appear separated by 19 arcminutes and be of almost the same brightness. You'll need to be lucky with the weather and figure out how best to catch them in the brightening twilight of dawn.

The morning planet line-up becomes impressive towards the end of April; recording the waning crescent Moon's journey as it visits each planet will be a good test of skills. But its low altitude means it will remain challenging to catch. The same low altitude and brightening sky will cause problems for the Venus -Jupiter conjunction at the end of April into May.