Fortunately BMD, while the closest approach occurs on the 21st, the planets are within 20 arc-minutes from the 18th to the 24th or thereabouts. That's still pretty close. On the 16th the waxing crescent moon is 5° below the planets. That would make a cool photo.
We just checked our long range forecast for that week, and we have clouds and thunderstorms here
Would love to see a picture if someone gets one please.
Unfortunately that's how the weather generally goes in Ohio too. My wife saw the 2 planets on a clear night a couple days ago, they're getting close. One of my sons is going to try with my Canon 7DMk2 camera & 500mm telephoto lens on a fixed tripod. The planets require a clear southwest horizon to see them from 40°N about 1 hr after sunset.
2020-12-21, 09:28 PM (This post was last modified: 2020-12-21, 09:32 PM by PMSchu.)
Hi All,
My son got this image on 20 Dec 2020 at 18:30 EST from Columbus OH. It was shot through his attic window because the planets were in the trees from street level. The image was taken with a Canon 7DMk2 DSLR on a fixed tripod using a 500mm f/4 + 1.4x teleconverter 1/20 sec at f/5.6. Here's the full APS-c frame:
[attachment=1570]
And here's a heavy crop: [attachment=1570]
The 4 Galilean moons are visible, but Titan is too faint to show up. The moons are right where ST4i predicts they should be.
Very cool!!!
Phil S.
Oops, the uncropped image is posted twice. The thumbnail shows the cropped image. Hmmm, no thumbnail.
Nice work Phil. As predicted, we have had crap weather. I had about a 5 minute gap in the clouds, so was able to glimpse them disappearing below the horizon. The scope was still warm so didn't bother with trying to get a photo, but the 2 planets and the 5 moons had seconds of clarity as the atmosphere changed.
I'm glad that you got to see them! I saw an image on another board shot from Texas with an 11" scope & DSLR, I'll ask for permission to post it here. It's a great image.
We couldn't see the conjunction at all on the 21st here in Columbus, but I did get another opportunity again last night and again had to shoot out of my attic window since the planets were behind my neighbor's house across the street. I cropped this one too.
According to ST4i the separation at 18:22 EST on 22 Dec 2020 was 10'10". Still less than twice the minimum separation. They won't be this close again until March 2080!