High School Will You Capture Jupiter and Saturn's Historic Conjunction?

[fresh_42]

TL;DR

Rare astronomical event in 12/16 till 12/25

Just after sunset on the evening of Dec. 21, Jupiter and Saturn will appear closer together in Earth's night sky than they have been since the Middle Ages, offering people the world over a celestial treat to ring in the winter solstice.

https://phys.org/news/2020-11-december-jupiter-saturn-planet-middle.html

I do not know if we have enough hobby astronomers here, but the above calls for a photo competition. But in any case, don't miss the opportunity if you're a stargazer!

 

[davenn]

They have been close together for many months

Thursday nite I photo'ed the moon, Jupiter and Saturn together in the one frame

EDIT ... naughty me, I should have put some details

Canon 6D, 24-105mm lens @105mm. Exp 40th sec, ISO 1600

 

[russ_watters]

I do not know if we have enough hobby astronomers here, but the above calls for a photo competition. But in any case, don't miss the opportunity if you're a stargazer!

Wow, that's really close, I'll have to give it a shot. Problem though; my telescope is permanently mounted on the east side of my house. It'll be worth moving it for that though.

 

[DennisN]

https://phys.org/news/2020-11-december-jupiter-saturn-planet-middle.html

I do not know if we have enough hobby astronomers here, but the above calls for a photo competition. But in any case, don't miss the opportunity if you're a stargazer!

Thanks for the info! I will have a go at it, and hope for clear skies.
Edit: @Andy Resnick , @chemisttree and @bruha may also be interested in this, maybe.
Edit 2: And @collinsmark and @Drakkith too, of course.

 

[jtbell]

I delayed my afternoon walk until sunset today so I could look for J & S from a spot on campus that has a wide clear view towards the southeast. Sure enough, the darkening sky revealed J first, then S. Now that I know which direction to look, I can see them from my front yard. Still not dark enough yet for the full effect. Separation is a bit less than the width of my index finger at arm's length.

 

[collinsmark]

I delayed my afternoon walk until sunset today so I could look for J & S from a spot on campus that has a wide clear view towards the southeast. Sure enough, the darkening sky revealed J first, then S. Now that I know which direction to look, I can see them from my front yard. Still not dark enough yet for the full effect. Separation is a bit less than the width of my index finger at arm's length.

"Southwest," right?

 

[jtbell]

Yeah, I had a pretty good view to the southwest, too.

 

[Andy Resnick]

Thanks for the info! I will have a go at it, and hope for clear skies.
Edit: @Andy Resnick , @chemisttree and @bruha may also be interested in this, maybe.
Edit 2: And @collinsmark and @Drakkith too, of course.

I've been patiently waiting for clear skies- tonight may be the first one in a couple of weeks. Fingers crossed!

 

[Andy Resnick]

Woot! Here's today's composite shot, adding the moon for scale. 800mm, but only the central DX portion of a frame:

(Deliberately overexposed to show Jupiter's moons)

 

[Vanadium 50]

Wow - one can see the (tiny) axial tilt of Jupiter.

 

[davenn]

Finally, a small break in the clouds to the west ...
5 mins later and they were gone into the next approaching storm clouds
Last evening, 17 Dec 2020, Moon, Jupiter and Saturn
Canon 6D, 70-200mm lens @200mm, Exp. 40th sec, ISO 2000
So much closer than when I last photo'ed them on the 6th Dec

cheers
Dave

 

[Charles Link]

Very nice. One observation is that I think left and right are reversed in the photo. Is that correct?

Edit: I think the ecliptic setting to the left might be because it is from the southern hemisphere.

 

[davenn]

I think the ecliptic setting to the left might be because it is from the southern hemisphere.

yup, that is the reason

 

[Wrichik Basu]

Took this photo today. Camera: Panasonic FZ70. Could not get a better shot with 60x zoom and all the lights in the city.

Waiting for better pictures from others.

 

[russ_watters]

Too cloudy here. I saw it briefly through the eyepiece, but no pictures. Even knowing how close they'd be, I was still surprised by how close they looked at 200x magnification. I actually overlooked Saturn at first glance!

 

[jtbell]

Nikon D7000 on a tripod, with the stock zoom lens at the maximum 105mm. I focused the tiny specks as best as I could by hand, and used the timed-release mode to trigger the shutter. ISO 3200, f/5.6, 1/10 s. Plus some help from Photoshop (cropping and exposure). Lots of sensor noise!

 

[hutchphd]

Got a good glimpse last night: really wonderful tableau with the ~$\frac 1 6$ moon and then lotsa Mars on up the ecliptic. Cloudy tonight.

 

[Fervent Freyja]

All I managed using an iPhone 11 camera.

 

[sandy stone]

Some years ago my kids gave me a 4" Meade reflector with a shaky mount, but pretty decent optics (once I got the mirror adjusted). Last night I got the observation of a lifetime, Jupiter with its moons and Saturn with its rings in the same field of view. I owe them another big "thank you". Incredible, but sorry, no photographic equipment.

 

[DennisN]

It's been very cloudy here recently, so I haven't had an opportunity yet. I hope it will get clear soon.

 

[fresh_42]

I found this on the net (the line is the ISS):

 

[Charles Link]

Tonight (5:20 P.M.) I got a good look at Jupiter with 4 moons and Saturn with rings in my (Edit:) Edmund Scientific Astroscan telescope with magnification of 50 x. (Sorry, no pictures). It was amazing. The two planets were very close together near the center of the field of view.

 

[DaveC426913]

What my buddy got with his 12" Meade:

Credit due, and more pix:
http://www.kantbelievemyeyes.com/My...7q_kx0m0XElMfwLc3PLkBVJh4LVtTx2PGEEhOU_lCp-1Q

 

[russ_watters]

[sigh] I was hoping for something like that, Dave, but the clouds only broke long enough for a one-minute capture tonight, with a red filter, right at sunset:

 

[jtbell]

I got another picture tonight to show the relative motion of the two planets over 24 hours. First is last night's picture, uncropped. The second is from tonight at nearly the same time. Same zoom factor, slightly different locations, and different exposures.

We have a couple of days of clouds and rain coming up, so I probably won't be able to try again until Friday.

[added] I didn't try it on Friday because it was too cold (about 30F) and windy. On Saturday it wasn't quite as cold, and no wind. So here's a similar picture, five days after the first one, and four days after the second one:

 

[Fervent Freyja]

Mine from last night/sunset.

 

[russ_watters]

Ok, so full disclosure; this is a two-night composite with the background and locations taken from a single poor quality monochrome shot through the clouds on 12/22, then replaced with better shots on the 23rd. And the moons are heavily processed. But it's the best I could do...

 

[collinsmark]

Here's my Great Conjunction photo taken from my carport on the evening of Dec 21st, 2020.

Here's the same photo, annotated.

The image was made by capturing tens of thousands of individual frames, over the course of about 25 minutes, at a few different camera gain settings to increase dynamic range (FireCapture acquisition software was used). They were stacked with lucky imaging techniques using Autostakkert!, wavelet sharpened using Registax, and then combined and adjusted using Gimp.

The moons and star didn't end up being very round. I'm not sure if that was due to poor collimation of my scope, the large amount of atmosphere I was shooting through, or some other reason. It was first light for both my 0.62 telecompressor (a.k.a. focal reducer) and the ASI385MC camera, if that makes a difference. (It was probably poor collimation.) Whatever the case, it's too late to correct for this image.

Time of capture: 2020-12-22 01:42 UT +/- 13 minutes.

Equipment:
Meade 10" LX200-ACF
Optec Lepus 0.62x Telecompressor
ZWO Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector (ADC)
ZWO ASI385MC (Color camera)

 

[jtbell]

I updated my pictures in post #25 with one taken tonight.