21st Annual Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest Natural World
The Venus Original

This is an original photograph of Venus. I had to wait 5 days after the Venus/Jupiter conjunction (March 1, 2023) to get this photo because of nightly cloud cover. I was very lucky to get this image so well centered. Usually when I center a planet, the result is a star-like image. But I have learned that areas close to the center box sometimes produce a "green light" focused photo while remaining in the planet form. This is one of those photos. I screened preview images of a wide variety of sizes from small to large. The larger ones were kept, and the smaller ones rejected. Sometimes, a "supersized" image appears, like this one, but it is rare. For instance, this photo is 50% larger than 2 others, with the same settings, taken just seconds earlier. Larger is better because as the planet expands, so does the terrain. This photo is so focused that if the viewer slowly magnifies it, they will take a trip from outer space to the surface in focus the entire way.

Photo Detail
Date Taken: 03.2023
Date Uploaded: 10.2023
Photo Location: Honolulu, Hi, United States of America
Camera: Canon PowerShot SX720 HS
Copyright: © Kenneth Carroll