Conjunction to Conjunction

This image tracks 6 months of planet Venus motion in the evening sky, above western horizon of Bursa in Turkey. There are several days between each shot of this digitally combined result of 41 exposures, which were all taken when the Sun was 7 degrees below the horizon. As explained by the photographer “Venus’ evening apparition of 2010 started in mid-February, when the planet became visible after superior conjunction. But due to weather conditions and travels I started this image on March 21. I shot Venus in 24 evenings until the end of June but in July I was traveling to New Zealand and Cook Islands for the total solar eclipse oh 11th July 2010. My brother Cenk took the three more pictures needed from our rooftop with an old film camera and the same field of view (with 24 mm lens). I set up a wooden mount for the camera to look exactly at the same field I was photographing. After returning home, I continued imaging Venus on 14 more evenings until the end of September, when Venus approached its inferior conjunction with the Sun. The total of 41 images between March and September waited for 16 months until I finally had time to process and combine them in this result.” See similar long-term imaging efforts by the photographer in the earlier years: Venus in 2006-2007, Venus loop in 2005-2006. Click on the second photo to see a drawing by the photographer from 1994 when he first planned to photograph the long-term motion of Venus in the sky. Cenk E. Tezel & Tunc Tezel