In 1623 Earth witnessed the last conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. In fact it was almost 400 years earlier that this conjunction occurred at night, so almost 800 years ago! On December 21, 2020 we were lucky enough to have the same event happen again. Even more so, I was lucky enough to have great weather in my location and while not ideal viewing, was able to see the event for a couple hours. The moon was about half full, and Saturn and Jupiter became visible at dusk in the south eastern sky. I found the brightness of the moon, the sun setting in the west, light pollution from my city to the west, and the short time before the two planet dropped below the horizon to all be challenges. Nonetheless, what an amazing event! I captured several shots of the moon while waiting for the sun to set, and decided to include them in this post. The moon is about 240,000 miles from Earth, Jupiter about 550 million miles, and Saturn about 1 billion miles. So even while these two planets looked close, they are still 450 million miles apart. It is simply a display of alignment versus them being significantly closer. Using my Celestron 8SE, the shots I got were hazy and mediocre at best. There was quite a bit of wind, and the mount for the 8SE does not do well with the very slight movement. Regardless of the challenges, over a few hours I was able to witness a once in a lifetime event, and hopefully my photos will inspire others to look upward!
A Healthier Future, Together