Jupiter – Saturn conjunction marathon

[Graeme1858]

I too have watched the ever-narrowing gap between these two giants over the last couple of months. Now, on the cusp of the conjunction, we have been plagued with overcast skies here in SW lower Michigan!

Same in SE England too! Saw it last night though.

Welcome to the forum.

Regards

Graeme

[a100171]

Terrible weather here. Again.

The sun shining through the clouds later this afternoon had me feeling optimistic, with the moon regularly peeking through the clouds. Got setup in case, but the weather went nowhere but downhill.

My luck of recent...

[gregl]

A wipeout here too. I'm glad we saw it last night, as I reported above. Here in Central Cal., we have this lovely winter Tule fog that comes up from the ground and cuts visibility sometimes to little more than 20 feet. I have at times had to drive with my head out the window looking down at the center line of the road. So today it didn't burn off until just after lunch. Beautiful blue sky. Hopeful. Set up the tripod at 4 this afternoon, walked back in to get the OTA and by the time I walked back out to the tripod, a big foggy cloud moved in, blotted out the sun, and the fog came up from the back field. So in 50 minutes we went from clear blue sky to 300-foot visibility.


:sigh:

[Makuser]

Hi all. I couldn't find anybody to help me transport my 6" refractor to a local park where we could have a lot of horizon to work with for the conjunction. So, I pulled the scope all the way out to the very end of our driveway and here is the little window of opportunity that I had to work with at that position:

I did mark the magnetic north and true north conversion lines on our driveway to achieve a rough polar alignment. Before the conjunction, I did have some fun looking at the Moon (at 1st quarter phase). And, I did have someone come by and wanted to take a look. A few minutes later, I did a meridian flip and got ready for the conjunction. A few more folks stopped by and took a look too, but it was only a few minutes later that the planets went into the trees. DRAT! However, one of the last folks were a couple that I saw a few weeks ago when I was taking shots of the SpaceX launch with supplies to the ISS. We got to talking, and I told them about TSS, so they may join us. They went home to find a pair of binoculars to view the conjunction. I put everything away and came inside to enjoy the turkey noodle soup that I was also working on, which turned out very nice. Not a great report or any images from me, but I did meet a lot of nice folks during this outing.
PS. The 6" refractor scope used to be the easiest for me to take out and set up. But it sure seemed much heavier this evening. I must be getting really old.

[Bigzmey]

12/21/20
Just came back from observing. Jupiter and Saturn were 6'24" apart tonight. Interestingly, I was able to resolve Saturn on the right from Jupiter with naked eyes. It seems that seeing was a ted better today, which helped. Also enjoyed the view in 80ED scope with XW 5mm EP (100x).

My family came to take a look. My daughter was a bit disappointed. Because of the media hype she expected them to sit on top of each other even in the scope. For me and my wife it was certainly close enough to be exciting.

Mars was not bad either. At 100x gibbous phase and a couple of dark features were resolved.

Ended up with half Moon at 100x.

[musiclucho]

Nothing but clear skies here in the San Joaquin Valley YAY!!! I wish the sky was a bit cleaner but nah...agriculture pollution.
At least I could see the planets and some bright stars again. I shot some pics with my phone and re did the thing in ol photoshop. I guess I am too rusty to go back to my sketching protocol lol.

[Bigzmey]

Nothing but clear skies here in the San Joaquin Valley YAY!!! I wish the sky was a bit cleaner but nah...agriculture pollution.
At least I could see the planets and some bright stars again. I shot some pics with my phone and re did the thing in ol photoshop. I guess I am too rusty to go back to my sketching protocol lol.

Nice shot Luis! Good to hear back from you!

[Bigzmey]

Hi all. I couldn't find anybody to help me transport my 6" refractor to a local park where we could have a lot of horizon to work with for the conjunction. So, I pulled the scope all the way out to the very end of our driveway and here is the little window of opportunity that I had to work with at that position:

I did mark the magnetic north and true north conversion lines on our driveway to achieve a rough polar alignment. Before the conjunction, I did have some fun looking at the Moon (at 1st quarter phase). And, I did have someone come by and wanted to take a look. A few minutes later, I did a meridian flip and got ready for the conjunction. A few more folks stopped by and took a look too, but it was only a few minutes later that the planets went into the trees. DRAT! However, one of the last folks were a couple that I saw a few weeks ago when I was taking shots of the SpaceX launch with supplies to the ISS. We got to talking, and I told them about TSS, so they may join us. They went home to find a pair of binoculars to view the conjunction. I put everything away and came inside to enjoy the turkey noodle soup that I was also working on, which turned out very nice. Not a great report or any images from me, but I did meet a lot of nice folks during this outing.
PS. The 6" refractor scope used to be the easiest for me to take out and set up. But it sure seemed much heavier this evening. I must be getting really old.

I am glad you have managed to see it Marshall. I know what you mean about the equipment. 150ST itself is lightweight for it size, but add mount and EP case and it is not a grab and go anymore.

[gregl]

Nothing but clear skies here in the San Joaquin Valley YAY!!! I wish the sky was a bit cleaner but nah...agriculture pollution.
At least I could see the planets and some bright stars again. I shot some pics with my phone and re did the thing in ol photoshop. I guess I am too rusty to go back to my sketching protocol lol.

Not in Fresno. As I wrote above we got hammered by the Tule fog. Couldn't see the neighbor's Christmas lights 100 yards away. It's now 9 a.m. and we're still at about 150 yards visibility. It doesn't look like it will clear before noon.

[Makuser]

I am glad you have managed to see it Marshall. I know what you mean about the equipment. 150ST itself is lightweight for it size, but add mount and EP case and it is not a grab and go anymore.

Hi Andrey. Add on the 2" dielectric diagonal, 2" eyepieces, 2 speed GSO Crayford focuser, 9x50 RACI finder scope, mount extension, and the axis drive motors, and you quickly add up a few more pounds. But I still love this jewel, even with the chromatic aberration on very bright objects. Like you have said, this instrument is a beautiful wide field keeper.

[mikemarotta]

'
Last night was cloudy where I needed it least. But I was able to pierce through a little with my telescope to at least get the positions.

[murphcc1]

Clouded over last night, tried tonight but cloud cover and seeing conditions were horrible except for about 15 minutes I got a glimpse of it with binos, looked like crap in the telescope no matter the EP used, tried getting some pics with camera phone and attachment but they were horrible cause of the conditions.
At least I got to see it with bino's but I couldn't even see the moons of Jupiter........ah well.......I'll just have to wait till next time...........

[Bigzmey]

My lucky strike has ended. Clouds for the rest of the week. Can't complain though, I got 4 observing nights out of this conjunction.

[John Fitzgerald]

We watched the conjunction Saturday evening through this evening. We were rewarded with four straight fairly clear, and not too cold, evenings. The first three through the 6" apo, and this evening through the ED 80. I feel very lucky to see a conjunction that has not been closer for 397 years. The last very close one (1623) happened within 13 degrees of the sun. This one was about 30 degrees elongation, so probably the best in several hundred years.

https://sparky.rice.edu/public-night/jupsat2.html

[mikemarotta]

I received a certificate from the Astroomical League for the Conjunction. The requirements were to record it (of course) with sketch, photograph, or other, and then to present the topic as an outreach. I did my outreach on a discussion board for fans of the works of Ayn Rand. (See here: https://forum.objectivismonline.com/ind ... n-of-2020/ )