Sky Shots from the Week

There's almost always something interesting to see in the sky. In the day, at twilight and in the night there are sights to see. "It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires, both subtle and gross."*

There were lots of nice sights here this week with a great pairing of Venus and the Moon, a bright Iridium flare, hot air balloons and more. Have a look.

Here's Venus and the crescent Moon as seen on the 6th:

The Moon moves quite a lot from one night to the next. Here's the view from the 7th:

Also, on the 7th we had a bright (magnitude -6) Iridium flare visible. I almost missed getting a shot of it and literally had just plopped the camera tripod into position as it was getting started. 

Saturday's sunrise:

Once the Sun works its way into the sky it becomes time to launch hot air balloons. We had 3 of them in the sky visible simultaneously this morning. Here's a rather poor wide shot showing them. Some nicer, detailed shots follow.

*Yeah, that was a quote from Q in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Q Who.