Last words on Mars and Saturn

I think I'll stop looking at the dawn sky for now. For one thing, waking up at six o'clock every morning for the past fortnight or so in anticipation of taking nice photos of Venus, Saturn and Mars has taken a slight toll on my alertness. By mid-afternoon, I feel sleepy and am forced to take 40 winks, a consequence of which I find that bedtime gets pushed back later. Then I have to wake up at six o'clock again the next morning. The cycle repeats and I feel more tired than usual. So let me stop for a while to regain my old routine.

And I think I have enough pictures taken to satisfy myself. Almost daily pictures except for the fifth of April when the morning was too cloudy for the three planets to show up in the sky. Dang it! On that day, Mars and Saturn would have been seen closest together from our point of view on Earth. I would have loved to see that but for the clouds covering up this conjunction of the two planets on this crucial day.

This morning again, the cloud cover was in patches but it was thick enough to obliterate the planets from my view. Therefore, I shall conclude my dawn photography sessions and simply post here my final picture from yesterday morning which I took with my son's old Nikon D5100 camera. There's a thick line running diagonally below Venus but that was only an overhead electrical cable and nothing more. 

Again from our point of view on Earth, the three planets are moving across the sky at different speeds. Venus is the fastest of the trio and had actually overtaken Saturn moving eastwards in the sky on the 29th of March. Saturn is comparatively the slowest, which is why Mars was also overtaking it on the fifth of April.

(On facebook several days ago, I mentioned that Mars was moving downwards towards Saturn and would be overtaking it but a friend messaged me privately to say that no, it was Saturn that was moving upwards towards Mars. I noticed that one of NASA's stories mentioned that Saturn was moving towards Mars but I've seen more news write-ups saying the opposite. To me, I would still maintain my position that Mars was moving towards Saturn. Ah, but it's all relative, right?)

PS. If I could have a better view of the early morning sky, I could probably see Jupiter rising above the horizon too. It has come into view already and is brighter than either Mars or Saturn. It should have been quite a sight but for me to see all four planets together, I will need a better vantage point than simply roaming the few metres outside my house.