19th December 16:25 hrs: Jupiter & Saturn 1/4 degree apart

[John]

Just managed to catch these two with my Vixen ED102 refactor at 141x. Easily (and delightfully) contained within the field of view of an 82 degree 4.7mm eyepiece. The pair are 15 arc minutes or a quarter of a degree apart now

Crazily variable weather so it's nip and tuck on whether glimpses are got at all and I have to be ready to haul the setup in at a moments notice

 

 

Edited December 19, 2020 by John

[John]

Saturn & Jupiter are now hidden by tree branches so that's my little window of time with them over for tonight.

The moon looks lovely though

[DaveL59]

drat missed the chance listening to the latest new conf and suddenly skies cleared. Can just make out a single bright dot but well down in the treetops and moon behind the oak. Looks lovely but no point getting the scope out for it now.

[John]

6 minutes ago, John said:

..The moon looks lovely though

Messier and Messier A and a little further north, the Rupes Cauchy are looking superb just now

[MercianDabbler]

We tried. We failed.

Stood in a field with a decent view of the horizon. Little bank of cloud in the direction of sunset. We waited and it turned into a big bank of cloud so we abandoned once we couldn't even amuse ourselves by looking at the moon.

Chucking it down now 😟 . Kettle on.

Will try again another day.

Edited December 19, 2020 by MercianDabbler
typo

[Davey-T]

6 minutes ago, MercianDabbler said:

We tried. We failed.

Stood in a field with a decent view of the horizon. Little bank of cloud in the direction of sunset. We waited and it turned into a big bank of cloud so we abandoned once we couldn't even amuse ourselves by looking at the moon.

Chucking it down now 😟 . Kettle on.

Will try again another day.

Snap 

Dave

[Tiny Clanger]

I noticed there might be a chance of seeing Saturn & Jupiter at around 4:15, as a bank of cloud was (painfully slowly) drifting across and leaving the relevant bit of sky ... Optimistically set the 127 mak  up in the garden to cool, and even thought to stick an old (but lovely) manual everything 85mm Nikkor lens on the DSLR . Kept nipping in and out with the binoculars to anxiously scan the sky until ... bingo !

There the pair of planets were,  just above another approaching finger of cloud . Found 'em in the RACI, then had a good couple of minutes view with the mak, this time both fitted within the view of my 12mm plossl ,(last time the 17mm was a squeeze) three Galilean moons were strung out between . Too fuzzy for any detail beyond a vague impression of coloured bands on Jupiter and I couldn't quite see both in the view of the 8mm BST. Took a bunch of (awful) photos, then as houses spoiled my view completely, got in the car to have another attempt to recce some nearby rural spots : confirmed the end-of-bridleway pull in will be good , but by the time I'd continued to the second location 10 minutes away, the finger of cloud had hidden the planets. Phew.

The BBC online weather forecast agrees with C.O. that the sky should be clear tonight around here around midnight after some rain, so I'd better get the scope in for a bit . The forecasts for tomorrow look , meh, might be clear, might not.  The prediction for Monday ? Uniformly terrible ...

[Davey-T]

Drove up to higher ground, thick black cloud set up camera on tripod hoping for a clear bit, started raining packed up got back in car and spotted planets through hole in cloud so handheld 300mm 1sec ISO800 through windscreen 😂

Then it started hailing 🤣

Bit clearer where the Moon was

 

[Tiny Clanger]

Soon as I'd typed my post, I went out into the garden to  retrieve the 'scope (which was safely under it's repurposed waterproof cover nicked off one of my rucsacs ) and suddenly the heavens opened and a rainstorm hit.  I've had a very lucky evening so far !

[Davey-T]

Just got back in the car and had a hailstorm.

Dave

[Mark at Beaufort]

Its not been a great day with constant heavy showers. However, the sky cleared about 4.45pm so I could view the planets. Firstly with the Helios Apollo 15x70 then I took out the Heritage 130P. I started with the SvBony zoom then replaced it with the 10mm Baader Classic Ortho then I switched to the Fujiyama 9mm Ortho + the Baader 2.25x barlow (1.3x) part) It was great to have both planets in the same FOV with a 94x magnification.

It not very often that Pam (Wife) takes an interest but she came out and viewed both planets using the 10mm part of the SvBony zoom.

Hopefully, I will get an even closer look if it stays clear tomorrow.

[Paul73]

Got a quick view hanging out of the bedroom window with my son’s mini Dob. Seeing was surprisingly steady all things considered 😁

Hope that others managed to catch this magical view.

Paul

[RobertI]

Good catches by all. Tonight was my first view of both planets in the same FOV. I used my 102ED with a 68 degree E/P at 100x and easily fitted both in. I could have gone higher, but they were sinking fast and the views were a bit wobbly anyway. Definitely worth it though and even my 6 year old son also managed to have a look. I managed to get a very poor shot with the iphone, more for posterity than anything else.

[Ships and Stars]

Got them tonight! Was using the 40x eyepieces in the 100mm Helios bins on the new TS Optics fork mount, works really well. Nice and sharp. 

There were around half a dozen people waiting on the hill near town, blowing a proper gale with intermittent rain and quite cold. I set up on the leeward side of a high stone wall, or else it would have been impossible with the wind.

Around 4:15 pm it was looking dire, but then a small sliver of sky opened up and... and... there they were.

At 40x the rings around Saturn were nicely displayed, albeit quite small, and next to Jupiter, three moons Callisto, Ganymede and Europa were easily visible.

I wanted to try for some more moons, esp Saturn's Titan, but it was a very short and sweet 10 - 15 minute break in the cloud before it closed up again. 

Hurriedly took an unfocused phone camera shot just as the cloud moved back in and a quick shot of the bins, and back home...

Trying tomorrow with the 12" dob and some higher mag, weather permitting 👍

[PeterW]

Popped out after a shower as the sky had cleared, went round the corner with the 66mm spotter and nailed them with the zoom at 8mm, very wobbly as they were at tree level. Had a few minutes until game over as the next cloud bank came in... very interesting colour contrast between the planets. Fingers crossed for the next few days! Maybe I could get at least one son to come and have a look.....

 

peter

[Ships and Stars]

10 minutes ago, PeterW said:

Popped out after a shower as the sky had cleared, went round the corner with the 66mm spotter and nailed them with the zoom at 8mm, very wobbly as they were at tree level. Had a few minutes until game over as the next cloud bank came in... very interesting colour contrast between the planets. Fingers crossed for the next few days! Maybe I could get at least one son to come and have a look.....

 

peter

Trying to get my daughter to take a look tomorrow through the dob if the clouds part long enough. My wife is onboard and wants to see them as well. Fingers crossed.

Edited December 19, 2020 by Ships and Stars

[wulfrun]

Miraculously the clouds parted here for long enough to get the bins out of the bedroom window (the only view available from home now). Heavy shower just  before and black clouds soon after. I managed to grab a (low quality) photo which I've put in the imaging section (hopefully appropriate). Saturn looks about twice as far as Callisto is from Saturn, visually.

[John]

Thanks for all the reports folks

My other half did come and have a peek at the pair and a little later also enjoyed the colour double star Gamma Andromedae. She won't be taking up the hobby anytime soon I suppose but she did make all the right noises about the views

 

 

 

 

[JeremyS]

Lovely views from Cheshire at dusk. My wife had a look too. She was quite excited especially after it was featured in The Times this morning.

[kerrylewis]

I am really fortunate in having a clear view from my garden in the right direction. Lovely clear skies after sunset as the planets emerged as the sky dimmed. Great view through the Tak 100 as Io disappeared behind Jupiter and Saturn was hanging in the 10mm eyepiece view - even another star getting in in the act as a fifth Jupiter moon. Even the seeming was not bad given the low position. But in some ways the naked eye view is the best and really shows the small gap between the planets.

This had been a vintage year with the summer comet and now this conjunction 

Weather tomorrow looks promising but Monday less so. 

[Nicola Hannah Butterfield]

Managed to catch this tonight 19-12-2020 @ 16:28UT, clouds parted long enough a few stills, and a couple of videos, not holding out much hope on those but at least it is something.

SW 200P and Canon 6D, 4s, f5 200ISO

 

 

[Dark Vader]

Managed 15 minutes through monopod mounted 10x50s after a heavy shower and between clouds. My SW view consists of a bright orange streetlight and a garden fence and they were already below "scope height". I even managed to extract my boy from his tech long enough for him to get a look through his bins. Lovely looking moon complete with earth shine as well.

[F15Rules]

I had packed the little Carton 60mm in the car ready to drive up a nearby lane for a view..

..I was cooking supper and took some peelings to the compost bin at the end of our (slightly sloping) garden: as I turned back, I noticed both Jupiter and Saturn low above our house roofline!

I literally ran back towards the house, and called to my wife "I can see the conjunction love, I'm going to nip out for a quick look!!" She didn't even look up as she was watching the TV briefing, disbelievingly, as our long planned trip to Devon to see our eldest daughter and her husband for Christmas disintegrated before her very eyes😔😞..

Anyway, I did go out and grabbed the FS128 ( the small Carton being already in the car), and I did manage to see it for about 5 minutes..I had to put the scope as far back in the garden as I could, short of standing on a flowerbed, to get them in the field of view..

I only had time to grab a Morpheus 17.5mm and Nagler T2 12mm, and just managed two lousy shots, one with each eyepiece, via my android phone held up to the eyepiece - it's SO difficult to see anything via the handheld phone, let alone a decent photo! But here they are anyway🤭..in the 2nd pic, Jupiter is literally half concealed by our roof line! ( I had the diagonal at either side of the focuser for each shot, hence the different orientations).. but I'm genuinely chuffed to have seen the two planets so close together in one field.

Dave

Edited December 19, 2020 by F15Rules

[JeremyS]

12 minutes ago, F15Rules said:

I literally ran back towards the house, and called to my wife "I can see the conjunction love, I'm going to nip out for a quick look!!" 

 

You old romantic, Dave 😊

 

Seriously, though, sorry to hear you Christmas plans are scuppered 👎🏻
Similar story here. 

[Captain Scarlet]

I had a reasonably full rig out yesterday, 150mm Intes and Pan 24 on my Ayoii+NexusDSC giving 70-odd magnification. Totally mesmerising. Today was looking to be a wash-out with violent squalls passing through and big banks of black cloud in the requisite direction. So I was taken by surprise when I went out to collect a delivery to see two fine pinpoint jewels and a cloud-gap worth at least 10 minutes. I grabbed my Kowa spotting-scope and was rewarded with a lovely view at 60x mag, 3 Jovian Moons more or less underlining Saturn. Such beauty!

Magnus

Edited December 19, 2020 by Captain Magenta