Moon, Jupiter and Venus

I struggled with clouds and logistics while taking some pictures of the crescent moon, Jupiter and Venus. This first photo show the three objects (Venus is at center) and some clouds, which were a problem early in the evening.



That photo could have been taken anywhere, so what I like to do is include some element in the foreground that adds to the photo. Tonight I was hoping to find a house on a hill decorated with Christmas lights. That never happened. But I did find a stretch of road that led to the conjunction.



The exposure of the first photo was 1/30 at f4.0 at ISO 800. The shutter speed for the second photo was 2 seconds (at the same aperature and ISO), so the foreground would not be black. That's why you can see the "dark" side of the moon lit by earthshine.

After more driving around, often with a car right behind me, I found a perfect location. The only problem was that Venus had just slipped below the horizon. But I'm going to try this spot again. The monument is at High Point, N.J., which is actually the highest point (1,803 feet) in the Garden State.



Here's a photo of a similar grouping from 2005:



And here's another from 2004, when the grouping was more spread out: