Last night’s sky was, amazingly, clear enough to let me enjoy a beautiful sight in the heavens: the Moon shining close to a bright planet, in this case, Jupiter.
I went up to Kendal Castle to observe and try to photograph the conjunction – which brought back many bad memories of absolute-waste-of-time trips up there during the summer hoping to catch a bright display of noctilucent clouds… I wasted SO many hours up there! 😦 But, anyway, seeing the sky was clear at 9.30 O grabbed my rucksack and tripod and headed across the park, over the river, and up the steep hill to Kendal’s famous castle – and it was well worth it…
Here’s the first view I had, of the Moon (hidden by cloud) and Jupiter, shining just above the horizon…
( The Moon is rather over-exposed to make sure I captured Jupiter on the image. ) Sensing some great photos there for the taking, I picked up my gear and relocated into the inside of the castle ruins, hoping for something a little more, well, scenic. I wasn’t disappointed. By standing in just the right place I was able to get this…
… which shows the Moon shining just above the castle, and Jupiter gleaming in one of the gaps in the ruins. Quite pleased with that! But I decided to play about a little experiment, trying different exposures, etc, and that got me these images…
Now, I AM pleased with that one! I know it’s more over-exposed than Katie Price and Cheryl Cole put together, but it is pretty, don’t you think? 🙂
It was about this time that I allowed myself a few minutes to just stand and enjoy the view. The Kepler Field of View was almost directly overhead… all those planets, waiting to be found, makes the hairs on your neck stand on end, doesn’t it?… and at 10.26 the International Space Station put in an appearence too, making a welcome return to the evening sky after only being visible at ridiculous o’clock for the last month or so…
Before calling it a night I thought it might be worth a try to take a pic from the top of the tower that stands at the western side of the ruins. As luck would have it, I was able to get a pic of the Moon and Jupiter shining through one of the “windows” of the tower…
Time to head home then, but along the way I stopped to take another pic…
So, all in all, a pretty good night’s viewing I’d say 🙂
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Cumbrian Sky 
I saw that last night and wondered if it was Jupiter. From my vantage point (and at the time I was looking), they were in an almost vertical line.