Hive,
In case this isn't on your radar, tomorrow, December 21st, is the Winter Solstice (shortest day of the year) and also will be the closest alignment of Jupiter and Saturn in their 20ish year cycle.
The level of alignment varies from cycle to cycle and the last time we saw this level of precision was ~1,200 years ago!
Here's a link for more information
If the weather is bad where you are tomorrow, don't worry about it, the alignment will be conspicuous for several weeks.
I just looked at them with my spotting scope. 20x -40x .
We could see the disk of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn, though not with a whole lot of granularity.
You need more power to see the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.
I've been waiting to see this. But it does not look like the weather will allow it here.
Oh, well- wait for a few thousand years.
Weather is junk here, but we've discussed driving for a few hours if that'll get us to clear skies.
My son, his GF and his cousin took his telescope out and were able to get both of them into a single frame on his max magnification lens. You could (barely) see the rings of Saturn, Jupiter itself and three of it's moons at max magnification.
I've got a telescope and plan to use it. Not sure I'll be able to get any photos at the magnification level needed to see any detail, but I'll try. I think I can go from about 25x to a little over 200x
The good news is the days start to get "longer".
I was driving across southern Michigan last Thursday and it was so gray and gloomy my headlights automatically came on at 3pm. These 4:30pm sunsets blow.
Datsun310Guy said:The good news is the days start to get "longer".
Correct!
But, it's initially a slow progression back up to long days...
alfadriver (Forum Supporter) said:I've been waiting to see this. But it does not look like the weather will allow it here.
Oh, well- wait for a few thousand years.
Finally cleared up a lot. But the two planets set an hour before....
In reply to jharry3 :
I have had a spotting scope for years and never thought to use it for something like this, I always grab my binos. We will try this tonight, thanks.
Came here looking for schoolhouse rock. Now thinking about Uranus.
AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:Came here looking for schoolhouse rock. Now thinking about Uranus.
I hear that and, butt, and or will get you pretty far.
She's a galaxy girl!
Anyone get any decent photos? I couldn't get my phone to cooperate but my BIL was able to get this blurry one:
that's a cell phone through my 130mm reflector at about 100x. The larger one on top is obviously Jupiter, and those dots around it are moons. What looks like rings is just dust/glare. The oval on the bottom left is Saturn and the rings are what's causing the oval shape. One of these days I'll get a proper camera setup.
Also, being the winter Solstice with the Wild Hunt and all, it was a good time for Orion to be out.
Conjunction junction what's your function? Picking. Up idiots and making them Crazies.
My son got this one, which was a cell phone pic of his telescope lens:
He said what was on the lens itself was a lot clearer.
I realized after reading these latest posts that the things I saw through my spotting scope that I thought were distant stars next to Jupiter was actually the Moons of Jupiter!
Yes, small victories please me greatly.
No telescope, but an App called SkyView is fun, free entertainment.
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