The Great Jupiter-Saturn Conjunction

The past couple of evenings David has gotten our little spotting scope out and trained it on the amazing meeting in the sky of be-ringed Saturn and Jupiter, with four of its moons clearly visible. Here is the phenomenon rendered photographically. The first photo, taken by David Scharf in Tampa, Florida, on 12/15, is in fact a blended image, and the planets appear too close together--but still, it conveys the phenomenal view of these two wanderers in one eyeful. As I said to a friend who complained that I posted something "false" on FB, let's just consider it poetry, rather than documentary. The view of both Saturn and Jupiter together, with the four pinpricks of moons, is what matters to my heart. I saw it with my own eyes, though maybe not in this exact configuration (Click to see the photos larger.)

The progression of the planets as they move toward each other:

The winter sky on the night of the solstice:

And a couple of photos by my FB friend Geraint Smith in New Mexico, from the 16th:

And last but certainly not least, this from my friend Bob Fugate, with the following description (he originally posted two images: one without labels, one with--which seems to be what he's referring to here): "This is a composite - the blending of two images. One is [an] image of the planets . . . made by stacking 74 RAW frames exposed for 1/20 sec at ISO 800. This image blends a 3 second exposure at ISO 1600 to reveal a few of Saturn’s 82 moons - they are everywhere it seems. Jupiter’s moons appear large because they are overexposed. Ganymede was shy and hiding behind Jupiter. In the second graphic I have labeled the moons detected - along with a 8.9 magnitude star. The image is oriented approximately how it appeared in the sky from Albuquerque, NM, USA at 5:20 PM local time December 21, 2020. The angular distance between Jupiter and Saturn is 6 arc min or 0.1 degree, 1/5 the diameter of the full moon. Jupiter is 553 million miles from Earth and Saturn is 1.013 billion miles from Earth (light travel time is 90 minutes). This composite was made with a Meade 7” Maksutov telescope, focal length equal to 2670mm and a Nikon D850 camera."

I forget to look up. I should look up more often.