Zubenelgenubi gets some guests!

While testing my planetary imaging demo for the talk I'm giving next month (see: http://www.brecklandastro.org.uk/meetings/ ) I spotted Saturn and Mars setting in the South West. I got a snap and looked at the image and spotted a star. I then ran across the field with the tripod to get a pic of the planets above the dome and observatory. So not such a 'far away thing'. It's one of those mind-blowing distance ratios. I also caught Andy walking back to the observatory who came back telling me the star was alpha Librae - aka Zubenelgenubi, my favourite star name! So from top to bottom we have Saturn, Zubenelgenubi (alpha-2 and alpha-1 next to it) then Mars. A beautiful scene I realised when processing it to bring out the faint details, giving pleasing pastel shades on the sky. Just 1/4" second exposure at ISO 1600, I had to turn the gamma down again as blogger overdoes it!