Four Morning Planets

After wrapping up my time shooting the Milky Way outside our room at the Canyon of the Eagles resort on Lake Buchanan (see my last post), I noticed a bright light through the trees and stepped across to the eastern view of the lake to check it out. Realizing it was Venus, I recalled the unique alignment happening this spring, a clear view of four of the five planets able to be seen with the naked eye in the morning skies: Jupiter, Venus, Mars and Saturn. I set up my equipment again and took a number of shots; below is the best of them with the planets aligned as in the Stellarium screen shot above. 

As this will progress into early summer with the planets jockeying for position relative to each other, the stars and occasionally the moon, I'll be looking for additional opportunities to capture this rare alignment including in late June when Mercury joins the other four. 

Click on image to view full screen.