Baby the stars shine bright...

[John K]

No John and it is disappointing. The Bumm has been giving the librarian 59 excuses...rumor has it that he isn't in town at all. He's suspect for having offsconded with the telescope.

Will you post if you're successful? Please and thank you.

Locally we are in the droppings of 2-4 additional inches of Lake Effect snows, boohoo, I would have to drive through Ohio at this point to see anything but a snow drift. lol
I'm a member in a moon mania group on FB, there is a gal in there who lives in the upper hemisphere of Africa; she has a lucky view and has been chronicling the conjunction's movements. I'm hoping she plans to continue. ♡

That's completely not right at all - he's storing up real bad karma.

I hope the weather clears enough for you to see it in the next few days - it's very clear here tonight, after over a week of lousy weather, so I grabbed a couple of pictures, but the planets are low down near the horizon and not completely dark so I'm not sure what I've got at the moment till I process them. It's a pig working out the right exposure.

There's a good view through binoculars if you have some.

 

[Sandie33]

That's completely not right at all - he's storing up real bad karma.

I hope the weather clears enough for you to see it in the next few days - it's very clear here tonight, after over a week of lousy weather, so I grabbed a couple of pictures, but the planets are low down near the horizon and not completely dark so I'm not sure what I've got at the moment till I process them. It's a pig working out the right exposure.

There's a good view through binoculars if you have some.

I do have binoculars

I'll give it a try once the sun creeps down.

Good luck with the pics.

 

[John K]

Good luck with the pics.

This is about the best image of the Jupiter Saturn conjunction I can get with my camera set up. I'm pleased we can actually see Saturn's rings (just about ). It would be good to see some of the moons too, but I've found in the past that it needs a much longer exposure for them, and it totally overexposes the planets that then flare badly. This picture is taken at 500 mm on a full frame camera, and then greatly cropped and enlarged on computer.



This is a screen shot from a star application on my PC showing the night sky at the time I took this photo. You can only really see the two planets for a short time after sunset before they set, so it's a good job it goes dark before about 4:30pm UK time. They will be at their closest tomorrow but there won't be a significant difference from today, and the weather won't be good here tomorrow evening so this is probably the best I can do. They are about 6 arc minutes apart in the night sky at the moment, so they are closer together than the apparent diameter of the moon right now, and it may be difficult to see them as separate objects without binoculars, depending on your eyesight. As you can see, they are only about 9 degrees above the horizon and sinking at the time they become visible here, so it needs an unobstructed view to the South and South West at the UK's latitude.




I gather this is the first time since the 12th Century that such a close conjunction between these two planets has been visible in the night sky, so make the most of it if you can!

 

[Sandie33]

This is about the best image of the Jupiter Saturn conjunction I can get with my camera set up.

such a close conjunction between these two planets has been visible in the night sky, so make the most of it if you can!

These are beautiful @John K !!!
Thank you for sharing. ♡
We have nothing here I was going to go on Cornell's Astronomy website and see if they are watching live. By golly I'll see it one way or not, lol

 

[Sandie33]

I can't find a Cornell University link, but this is a live chat watch if anyone's interested.
@John K

 

[John K]

These are beautiful @John K !!!
Thank you for sharing. ♡
We have nothing here I was going to go on Cornell's Astronomy website and see if they are watching live. By golly I'll see it one way or not, lol

Glad you like it Sandie - it's about the best I think possible with just a camera and long focus lens and I'm reasonably pleased with it. I could probably get a slightly better picture if they were higher in the sky. The atmosphere was turbulent and because the planets are near the horizon, it means they are jittering, so it's random whether a particular shot is slightly blurred with the apparent motion.

The images on the video you posted are interesting because they are through quite a large telescope and you can see the movements caused by the atmosphere. I'd love to be able to capture those kinds of pictures, but it'd need quite an investment in a largish computerised telescope with built in camera, I guess. That kind of thing needs to be set up semi-permanently and even if I could spend the money, I don't have a good place to site it at home. I suspect your yard would be good for that kind of thing - I bet you don't have the light pollution that we get either.

Saturn could hardly be better oriented for the rings at the moment. The first time I tried to see it though one of those small cheap telescopes for kids, the rings were almost edge on which was disappointing because it can take years for them to tilt back over again.

What's quite weird is that it seems to be impossible to find an exposure that's right for both planets - Jupiter is a lot brighter than Saturn at the moment so I've got some colour in Saturn, but Jupiter has burnt out to white. I took a shot that caught some colour in Jupiter, and a vague hint at it's banding, but Saturn is so underexposed on that frame that it's disappeared.

I hope you get a clear evening tomorrow so you can see it for real rather than through a web link.

 

[Sandie33]

I hope you get a clear evening tomorrow

Me too

Spoiler: If all adulting fails :P

I'd love to be able to capture those kinds of pictures, but it'd need quite an investment in a largish computerised telescope

I suspect your yard would be good for that kind of thing - I bet you don't have the light pollution that we get either.

Yes, the yard here may be a good location.

I'd love to have a permanent telescope walk.

In warmer months I can see Mars, Venus, and Saturn in June in our western sky with a naked eye.

It's quite odd watching her majesty the moon here at home. She arrives in the southeastern sky around dusk and makes her way into the north western sky at daybreak.
On bright days during the summer she hangs around until after 2pm and the earth rotates past our tree line.
I chased her by car once all the way to Canidaigua lake, 2+ hours north west from me, before she slipped off the horizon. So I chased her back home, lol.

That is largely why it's such a disappointment this fella didn't return the one from the library. I was so looking forward to dancing with the stars this Christmas.

 

[Sandie33]

@John K

This is the most remarkable yet. I wish I could give credits to the photographer, however, they only shared that this was taken from the view in Japan.

The lucky ducks, lol.

It's amazing with all the details.
* I'm going to keep up the search for the author of the photo because I think this would make a beautiful painting on canvas or in an art quilt

 

[John K]

Nice find @Sandie33 - that’s a beautiful shot. It’s a great photo of a crescent moon with earth light just on its own, but the conjunction makes it special.

 

[Sandie33]

Nice find @Sandie33 - that’s a beautiful shot. It’s a great photo of a crescent moon with earth light just on its own, but the conjunction makes it special.

it made my eyes leak.

 

[John K]

I think I just found my kind of galaxy

 

[John K]

This is quite a long video, but I found it made compelling viewing

 

[John K]

It seems to me that the greatest genius is often indistinguishable from taking the piss lol

Edit: what I mean by this is the way great insight can be born from having a bit of irreverent fun with the concepts and the weird ways they might fit the known facts. Playful and even outrageous speculation.

 

[Sandie33]

It seems to me that the greatest genius is often indistinguishable from taking the piss lol

Great video ... so how do we discover how to bore a proton then? lol

 

[John K]

Great video ... so how do we discover how to bore a proton then? lol

LOL it looks like you have to leave it on its own for many trillions of years before it gets really pissed off and evaporates.

That's a great interpretation - the universe gets so bored in the far distant future that it forgets how big it is and becomes a new big bang.

 

[Sandie33]

LOL it looks like you have to leave it on its own for many trillions of years before it gets really pissed off and evaporates.
I can envision a proton as a toddler picking up it's photons and throwing them into the wormhole while shouting, "Fine, I'll just go 'home then!" while it disappears
That's a great interpretation - the universe gets so bored in the far distant future that it forgets how big it is and becomes a new big bang.

Wouldn't it be phenomenal to witness a Big Bang event John?

I see videos and doc's about stars being 'born', some exploding, galaxies coming into view that we hadn't seen before, but what would make me notice would having the ability to witness a world from infancy to habitat-ability, (is that a word smhl).

Another thought,
It's often an annoyance when an evolutionist starts talking about the demise of the Universe in a linear way, lol. I have gotten so I hold my tongue rather than chastise them that the Universe has been here long before us and will remain long after and it is any thing but linear.

 

[John K]

Wouldn't it be phenomenal to witness a Big Bang event John?

I see videos and doc's about stars being 'born', some exploding, galaxies coming into view that we hadn't seen before, but what would make me notice would having the ability to witness a world from infancy to habitat-ability, (is that a word smhl).

Another thought,
It's often an annoyance when an evolutionist starts talking about the demise of the Universe in a linear way, lol. I have gotten so I hold my tongue rather than chastise them that the Universe has been here long before us and will remain long after and it is any thing but linear.

It would be fascinating to see the birth of a universe Sandie - maybe we can in another form of existence. There is such magic out there isn’t there? I was listening to a video yesterday that was pointing out an essential element in our blood is iron - it is what carries oxygen to our cells so it’s pretty vital. The only way iron can form is not in the Big Bang but in a supernova - so at the heart of every drop of our blood is the ash of probably several different vast star explosions from before the sun and earth formed.

 

[Sandie33]

It would be fascinating to see the birth of a universe Sandie - maybe we can in another form of existence. There is such magic out there isn’t there? I was listening to a video yesterday that was pointing out an essential element in our blood is iron - it is what carries oxygen to our cells so it’s pretty vital. The only way iron can form is not in the Big Bang but in a supernova - so at the heart of every drop of our blood is the ash of probably several different vast star explosions from before the sun and earth formed.

Refreshing that you 'get it' John! ♡

 

[Sandie33]

Mars pictures


https://www.uahirise.org/catalog/

 

[John K]

Hexagonal ring of cloud at Saturn's North pole





Saturn backlit by the sun, taken by the Cassini spacecraft. When I was a child fascinated by astronomy books and their fuzzy pictures of the planets, I never dreamed I'd one day be able to see Saturn from behind it. This image is a natural work of art.




The aurora at Jupiter's North pole.




There are so many really mind-blowing astronomical images nowadays that it's easy to think of them as commonplace. They aren't - it's taken 200,000 years of the existence of human beings before we were able to create the technology to see these things in all their incredible eerie beauty. We are immensely privileged.