February 2026
Welcome to Hank’s February 2026 Astrophotography Blog. Since taking up my Astronomy hobby in 2020, I’ve been looking at the night sky by visually checking out what’s overhead, by looking at objects through telescope and binocular optics, and by using telescopes, cameras and computer software to capture images of what I see, or Astrophotography. On the last evening of this month, Marianne and I did a little visual astronomy, as there was an alignment of planets in the sky, where under the right conditions we might see Mars, Mercury, Venus, Saturn, and Jupiter who were all lined up along the equatorial—we just had to show up at the right time, with the right sky conditions, when it was dark. Plus, the Moon was in the lineup, too! Of course there are always issues….such as the nearly full Moon’s brightness that blocked our seeing some of the planets, Venus and Mercury were sinking really low in the horizon behind some clouds, and some, like Neptune and Uranus who were in the lineup, too, but are so faint you need a telescope to see them. But what the heck, we were in Rapid City at sundown, so we headed to one of our favorite spots in town—Dinosaur Park. This park sits on a hill that splits Rapid City in half, so you have great views of the east and west sides of town. The night sky really spreads out before you, plus you are surrounded by giant concrete dinosaurs! The wind was…
