Our Neighborhood

Our sun and sunspots, tiny Mercury whch can only be seen for about a week during it's furthest elongation from the sun, One of the phases of Venus, The moon during a lunar eclipse representing our earth, Mars at it's closest approach in 60,000 years, Jupiter and Saturn the most awesome telescopic planets, distant Uranus and Neptune showing their actual colors, and if you look closely, distant and tiny Pluto, which is 3500 times dimmer than anything our naked eye can detect.

8" F10 Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope, 40mm eyepiece, 2.4x Barlow for Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Canon G2 at 1.8x-3x
Each photo taken individually over the course of several years, then combined into one for this family photo.