One of these nights, find crescent moon in southwest and look for two dots nearby. They are Jupiter and Saturn and they are in conjunction. About Dec 21 they will be closest and with super eyes you'd see like: One hopes that some grand telescope will take an image. Such close grand conjunctions are rare. 1226 AD and next about 2407. Yet we, the covid havers, get to see two unusually close dots. More rarely, Saturn actually 'goes behind' Jupiter for an occultation (as seen from Earth). Those happen about every 10 thousand years. Dots.
They are presently about 660 million km apart. 1700 (ish) distance between Earth and Moon. How dots appear depends on one's point of view.
Conj. is soon after twilight. Meteor zings are be better in devil's hours. You'll go out twice I know you know, but most of meteor shower zings we see are from 1 to 10 mm trash. Sand grain to pea size, unsuccessfully pushing 'atmosphere' aside, ~100 km up. They are the only non-stellar things one can ever hope to see from so far. Distance/size scale 10^7. I mean, dang.
I share your frustration. Mine comes in the form of having new camera equipment at the ready. I should be able to get the planets and a few moons... if the sky is clear. That photo is the result of me taking advantage of no clouds last week. I created a video too, showing how I got that shot.
Betelgeuse, that big, fat, 'could pop any time' star. Also about 10^7 distance/size scale. Meteorites are like 1- or 2-second femtostars. Actually much less than 'femto' but naming scale seems to end there.
SpaceWeather.com is a great place to go for picture gallery. I have a good view of Saturn/Jup out my garage so I will do what I can. Snowed til 1AM last nite
Those are some really nice shots. I had too look close to see the howling dog was really a tree in the shot above on the cloudy night. These are a few I took last summer freehand with my Panasonic FZ-70, it's been snowing here yesterday and today.
Dec 17. Visible by eye just at dusk for an hour or two, then set below the horizon. I am attempting to set a telescope over the next few day with a goal of seeing the rings of Saturn. Further, internet indicates with a super power scope, four of these planets moons are visible. Once in a life time hobby to view this alignment....good fun.
The naming scale does continue several more steps, though "atto" is the lowest one I remember seeing in use: Metric prefix - Wikipedia
Ugh- We appear to all clouded in until Tuesday.. I guess Monday the 21st is the Big Day I had decent view last night, went in to grab my camera, clouds rolled in before I could get one shot off.
Just before dipping out of view, the clouds rolled away last night. (Tonight, it's raining.) I managed to get these 2 shots.
It will probably be hard to get a get a photo as good as the view in a telescope because Jupiter is so much brighter than Saturn, and likewise when we had the Moon, the Moon is so much brighter yet. Sometimes the camera is the best "eye", since these days photographers use software to combine or "stack" hundreds of astrophotos to give an unbelievable nice view, but sometimes what you can see with your eye through the telescope is superior due to the eye seems to handle the brightness contrast better than camera.
from SpaceWeather.com This is snapshot with post-processing to adjust brightness (to brighten Saturn), because camera has issue dealing with the great contrast. However this pic should approximate what your eye would see in telescope..not quite with this much clarity and colors. I had 10-secs view in binos last night as the clouds cleared a little too late. I started trying to get my scope to the second floor but it was futile as the view was quickly falling behind the trees.
I managed to get a decent shot with my LG G3 with a 20mm 12X mobile telephoto lens. No zoom from stock camera and just adjusting the lens. Even got Jupiters rings! Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
I was able to see them, but.....light pollution even in my small town prevented them from being spectacular. I was able to share the moment with daughter and granddaughters who thought it was 'pretty neat'.....which made it thus.
I was able to see them with the naked eye. The "skymap" cell phone app was useful in locating where to look before it was even visible. It was higher above the horizon than I thought and quite clear. With binoculars I was able to see some of Jupiter's moons. I ran inside to get a telescope, but in the 10 minutes that it took me to set it up (I was prepared) the clouds came in and all I could see was a bright smudge. I missed Haleys comet, HaleBop and virtually every major "once in a lifetime" event. Ironic since I wanted to be an astronomer when I was in grade school. Dan
We've had mostly clouds since last week sometime, but holy clouds with some brief minutes of clear view. That has been nice view in the scope, and I just have to set the scope up at my garage door. My quick snapshot below thru the scope. It looks better thru the scope than this picture conveys, it looked more like the pro picture I posted above above, but not quite that good.
We were driving west just around sunset, sky mercifully clear for a bit, and I saw a honking bright star a bit above the horizon. Car moving so hard to tell, but anyway, the missus let me down gently, and she was right: just a plane approaching.
