You might think that crane had pulled it into view.
Actually the cloud’s fringe may have done so, by increasing contrast. After some dull days, this day’s sky was clear; then, after sunset, clouds invaded from the west, and at this moment, by averted vision (looking slightly to the right of it) I sensed the little smudge of Jupiter-superimposed-on-Saturn. Almost immediately, rain began to fall.
It was, in a miniature way, like the eclipse of 1997, which I saw in Mongolia through the edge of a snowstorm.
One of the features I’ve added to my page about “Conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn” is Kepler’s 1606 predecessor to this diagram of mine.
I would be glad to know what you think about viewing this page. Can you get to see the details clearly enough? What do you think about the relative merits of a web page like this versus a PDF? A PDF has to be opened with Acrobat, which may seem a further and perhaps intimidating step, but it can be enlarged as much as you like with full precision. It is like the source for a book.
We would also like your feedback on your experiences of the Great Conjunction. There have already been some comments, including one in the form of a limerick.
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ILLUSTRATIONS in these posts are made with precision but have to be inserted in another format. You may be able to enlarge them on your monitor. One way: right-click, and choose “View image”, then enlarge. Or choose “Copy image”, then put it on your desktop, then open it. On an iPad or phone, use the finger gesture that enlarges (spreading with two fingers, or tapping and dragging with three fingers). Other methods have been suggested, such as dragging the image to the desktop and opening it in other ways.
Sometimes I make improvements or corrections to a post after piblishing it. If you click on the title, rather than on ‘Read more’, I think you are sure to see the latest version.
This weblog maintains its right to be about astronomy or anything under the sun.
I’ve been observing the approach for months. I had a good picture Sunday and got a good one today/Tuesday. But we had solid clouds on Monday. I’d like to know the separation 24 hours either side of “closest”. They still look pretty close. My daughter had clear skies on Monday, and I shared your “telescopic view” with her to identify what she was seeing.
Beth, my calculation said that at the time of the conjunction the movement in longitude per day of Jupiter was 0.22 degree and of Saturn 0.11, so at a first rough approximation the separation a day before or after might have been greater by 0.11 degree. Not a strict wayu of calculating it!
Thank you, Guy. That helps me compare with the other conjunctions.
I’ve been watching the conjunction night by night through 10×42 image-stabilized binoculars from the top of Bernal Hill here in San Francisco. I’ve been very happy with the binocular view. Jupiter has been a bright white circle and his moons have been easy to see, and golden Saturn has been distinctly oval — can’t make out the rings though. I didn’t have to carry a telescope and mount up the hill, didn’t have to deal with children and dogs bumping into the mount, and didn’t have to tell people they couldn’t look through the telescope.
Sunday evening (about 16 hours before the moment of closest conjunction) was the best view so far — clear sky, Jupiter was very close to Saturn, and there were enough people to share a festive occasion, but few enough that everybody was able to spread out and stay safe. Last night (Monday, about 8 hours after the moment of closest conjunction) Jupiter was noticeably farther east compared to Saturn, but didn’t look any closer to my eye. The sky was partly cloudy, fortunately there were a series of big holes in the clouds to the southwest, but the sky was still a little hazy.
And last night there was a huge crowd of people, too many to allow for easy social distancing, although almost everybody was wearing a mask. I staked out a little spot away from the main crowd, and still had to ask a few people not to linger within breathing distance. From my eavesdropping about half of the people had heard there was something special to see in the sky, but didn’t understand what they were seeing. Too bad it wasn’t an organized event with a brief explanation!
When the weather allows, I’m looking forward to seeing Jupiter move away from Saturn as they both sink toward the sunset horizon, and I’m looking forward to sharing the hill with fewer people.
Solid clouds for me in NH – in my imagination I played with smooshing the planetary symbols together thus:
+
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That’s a typographic approximation. Looks better drawn.
Kepler was always trying to discern God’s will through planetary geometry.
The conjunction ws very beautiful in my Celestron 8 with a 30 mm eyepiece. It took up about 1/4th of the field of view. Never saw 2 planets in the same field of view before. The scope was still cooling down and there was some haze on the horizon so I only took 4 pictures, the last 3 being ruined by the haze. I needed about 8 more pictures to dial in a setting which would get good results plus I needed calmer skys, more steady seeing and less haze. Other than that it was perfect.
I think I may try again and see how far apart they are then.
We also had good weather for viewing the conjunction this evening, quite unexpectedly, so I was able to get a few images myself:
http://www.starvergnuegen.com/astropix/2020/2020_12_dec_index.html
the first three images are from tonight. The view in the eyepiece was spectacular! I’m glad I took some time before bothering with my camera equipment to enjoy the view through the telescope.
Eric, you’ve compiled the photographic book on the Great Conjunction of 2020. You deserve praise. Are you sending some to Sky & Telescope?
Your 5th photo brings out the remarkable difference vetween the brightnesses of Jupitr and Saturn, and the reason why Saturn does not much enhance the combined magnitude of the pair.
Guy, thank you very much! I do enjoy planetary sky scenes, and they are one of the few astronomical sights I can record well with my modest equipment and skills LOL. I have not sent any to Sky & Telescope, however I did send one the other day to the website http://www.spaceweather.com. They have a gallery of thousands of user images, including many by your faithful reader Kevan Hubbard. I attempted to create a mouse-over image swap between images captured on different days to show the motion of the planets, but I can’t quite get the two images to be rotated and oriented exactly correct so that the effect appears seamless: http://www.starvergnuegen.com/astropix/2020/2020_12_15_to_02_jup_sat_index.html
Your comment about the combined magnitude was so apparent last night. It has always made me wonder a little bit about the star of Bethlehem stories, the ones suggesting that multiple planets gathered together to make an arresting scene. Maybe the *gathering together* would have garnered attention, but not because of any dramatic increase in brightness. Even Venus and Jupiter together would be almost unnoticeably brighter than just Venus. No other planets at such a low altitude are very bright at all, actually.
I hope you don’t mind that on some of my web pages, I link back to your blog postings LOL, as I did here:
http://www.starvergnuegen.com/astropix/2020/2020_12_21_jup_sat_index_3.html
If you object, I can certainly remove them. Unfortunately, you won’t get much additional traffic from my website LOL
I certainly don’t mind a link, I’m honored.
Michael Teoh’s photographs make the event thunderously real.
A couple of comments.
First, I like this page. It reads easily enough as HTML, though I would probably say the same if it were a PDF.
Second, I was very fortunate this evening.
For the past couple of days it had been looking as though the Great Conjunction would not be visible from my new home in southern Maryland. However, starting this afternoon, we caught a break – a wedge of dry air pushed in, and we got clear skies, if only for a few hours.
I began my viewing at 22:15 U (17:15 ET local). There were some high, thin clouds that made the planets initially difficult to spot, but once they were acquired, they remained targeted. I used an Apogee 80mm f/5 RFT with a 9mm Plossl and an erect image diagonal. I sketched the event, first as a rough field sketch, and then an improved sketch. Not perfect, as the sketch had to be small to fit into my astronomy journals (which are composition books), but the idea was to capture the essence.
One thing that really stood out, to me, was how “white” Jupiter appeared compared to the yellowish tan of Saturn. All four Galilean satellites were visible, with Ganymede verging on a transit. With the sky ever darkening, the planets resembled so much a double star, much like Alcor/Mizar, though more golden.
The high clouds began to thicken at about 22:30 U, and ten minutes I had to pack it in, as the planets were fading.
I am glad I was able to view it. It was a wonderful sight.
Cloudy for me unfortunately but I have seen the run up to the conjunction over the last few days which is better than nothing.all in all a rather disappointing solstice but relieved by seeing too seals!