Christmas Star

[Carborendum]

For those of you keeping up on the "Christmas Star" news...I took some pictures.

First, a "big picture" view.  The lone shining object in the sky is the conjunction.

Then a zoom in:  The brighter light to the left is Jupiter.  You can kind of make out the half shadow because the sun is to the right in this photo.  Then the "blur" to the right of Jupiter is actually Saturn.  It was much more clear to the naked eye than my puny camera.  But that is what it looked like.

And for comparison:  The moon.  In reality the moon is pretty much at first quarter.  But the corona was so bright, it looks like a waxing gibbous or maybe even a full moon.  But to the naked eye it was pretty clear it was a quarter.

Edited December 22, 2020 by Carborendum

[NeuroTypical]

I took this photo with my old iPhone 7.  Is it any good?

[Carborendum]

23 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

I took this photo with my old iPhone 7.  Is it any good?

Show off...

Your telescope have a bluetooth?

Edited December 22, 2020 by Carborendum

[Carborendum]

My wife took the following photo and made an interesting observation.

It took a while for us to find a suitable spot to get out and take pictures.  So, I told the family we were like the wise men seeking the Christ Child.  We found the spot.  Our shadows made an interesting nativity scene.

Edited December 22, 2020 by Carborendum

[MrShorty]

Not as good as @NeuroTypical got, but here's one I got through my telescope. Difficult to get a good, single frame shot. Either overexpose Jupiter or underexpose Saturn. Atmosphere was all wobbly and noisy, too. But, still, you don't get to see two gas giants in the same telescopic field of view very often.

[JohnsonJones]

You guys are amazing with your pictures.  I went out with the few family that has been staying with us over the past few months and we saw the star (Jupiter and Saturn...after we were able to figure out where it was, it was the brightest thing in the sky just about if you don't include the moon).  I talked it over with my grandson and said that the last time it looked anywhere close to that was 800 years ago (I think that is right).

It just looked like a really bright object in the sky last night, but I think it will look more separated tonight (we plan on going out again to look at it).

[dprh]

We were able to see it from our backyard.  The kids were more interested than I thought they would be.  I took these with my Pixel3.  

Thanks for all the pictures!

 

[NeuroTypical]

Oh jeez - it looks like my "I'm lying of course, I didn't take this picture with an old iPhone" message never got posted!

Sorry all.  I was lying of course.  I really didn't take that picture with an old iPhone.  I just thought the fish story would migrate well into a cool-astronomy-pic story. 

[JohnsonJones]

I took a picture of them yesterday evening with one of my grandkids.  Saturn seemed to turn up very dim in my picture, not sure how to increase the exposure on my phone without ending up with a lot of shaky pictures.  My hands are not so steady, so if I increase the time it takes for the picture for better exposure, it ends up streaky.  With a good timing though, where we see the planets, it ends up with Jupiter bright, but Saturn very dim (but seeable).

[Still_Small_Voice]

I looked at Jupiter and Saturn with an eight power telescope.  It looked great.  That made a little difference but not much considering Jupiter is roughly presently about 400 million miles away from us.