[SimonC]

We had clear skies last night so I checked out one potential site:



This is two exposures, one for the foreground and one, with Astrotracer, for the sky. The sky exposure was made around 18:15, when Jupiter would have been around 18.3° above the horizon. On the 21st at that time, Jupiter and Saturn will be around 11.3° above the horizon. I'm more interested in a view wide enough to include some foreground, so this also gives me a sense of what focal length I'll want, should I be lucky enough to have clear skies again later this month. (This is with the Pentax K55/1.8 @f/2.8; I'll have to evaluate the K85/1.8 vs. the DFA 70~210 to see which would be the better choice.)

Stunning photo, one day I may have the equipment and skills to take such a photo.

[baro-nite]

Stunning photo, one day I may have the equipment and skills to take such a photo.

Thank you! The only essential piece of equipment for this was a tripod; Astrotracer wasn't strictly necessary. I used it because I could (thank you Pentax), but could have used a shorter exposure at higher ISO that would have worked nearly as well, and star trails wouldn't have been a big problem at this focal length. And with no Astotracer blurring the foreground, a single exposure for foreground and sky would work reasonably well. I'd say the main thing that makes this kind of photo work is the post-processing. And nothing too complicated required here, either: mainly just contrast and brightness adjustments. The essential post-processing trick is treating the foreground and sky differently, with a smooth gradient between them, and that is well worth learning if you haven't already. Give it a go.

[MossyRocks]

Thank you! The only essential piece of equipment for this was a tripod; Astrotracer wasn't strictly necessary.

ne day I may have the equipment and skills to take such a photo.

For astro shooting of any sort I would add a remote release to the list of of essential equipment but apart from a camera, reasonably good lens, good tripod, and a remote release of some sort. One doesn't need much to get started but throwing more gear at the problem is actually a very valid solution more often than not.

[DrMindbender]

With one week to go, time for teasers. (Pentax K-5 w. Sigma 50-500mm f/4.5-6.3 APO DG OS HSM @ 500mm & Sigma APO EX DG 2x teleconverter. Manual focus. F-6.3. 1/125s. ISO 51200.)

[blues_hawk]

Where I live there's a great clouds conjunction almost every day since weeks, so it will be exciting to see if the sky offers a view of the event after all. In any case thank's for telling aslyfox, I wasn't aware of that happening yet.

That's me too.. still!

[blues_hawk]

would that be cheating

not in my book

just a long lens

__________________

perhaps someone can verify this information:

been told that for those folks in the Northern Hemisphere:

look to the SW 45 minutes after sunset

Dec 21 is when the planets will appear closest to each other but " signs " of that will be visible throughout the week

if you miss it, you just have to wait until 2080

Seems Legit. They are very close together in Kstars star maps tonight(18th) and here in Va they appear very low in the sw following the sun "down" toward the west. You have to be in a good spot to see them in the mountains and ready to start right as the sun drops below the horizon. Seeing is going to be rough here too.
I've been doing evening sunset timelapses in the back 40, maybe I've got a lucky shot of them at 14mm behind clouds!

Ah, the "star in the East", as it appeared to the Parthian astrologers in 6 b.c. (and, by the way, as to the slightly mis-stated chronology, the census occurred in 4 a.d.). If you take an average of the two events, it would appear that year zero should be set back a couple of years.

[ZombieArmy]

I'm not planning on photographing this, but I will be observing it with my mirror telescope. I'm very excited to have this opportunity to experience history!

[DrMindbender]

Looks like my plans to capture the moons at the conjunction is a bust due to my Sigma 50-500 with the teleconverter being too slow and bad light pollution along the horizon.

Now I just hope I can get clear sky tomorrow night for the big event.

[blues_hawk]

Followup: I got that dec motor working, which turned out to be a bad motor shaft hob in the planetary(blahblah) I glued it to stop the slipping and then packed a ton of stuff in the olf pickup and headed down the hill to find a spot I hoped would work out. Mount, check, timelapse k50 check, clouds. check...Cold check. Ate all my snacks, got bored, packed up and went home...then the clouds cleared. Murphy would be proud. I grabbed a light tripod mounted the sct to it and overtightened the slip joints to stop the out of balance mess from flailing. ran out the door and tried to get a quick shot between the trees...which of course failed. I did get a decent moon shot though. :P
At least the rig is focused now. Once more into the breach!

[aslyfox]

it's tonight

You Tube

You Tube

good luck to all

and be safe while you capture the historic event

[Sakura]

It's raining cats and dogs overhere, so i stay inside, no pictures taking for me (The Netherlands)

[BobKG]

Today is the day of the great conjunction. Well, I live in Portland Oregon and it is raining (as usual). The clouds are so thick that we can't see the top of the trees. To compensate for our weather I am attaching this picture of Jupiter and Saturn taken earlier in the year (one of those rare days without rain). Since the planets were no where as near each other, I took separate shots of each and combined them in Photoshop Elements 12. And I threw in a shot of the moon for good measure. I used my Pentax K5 and my Takumar 500mm f4.5 telephoto lens (over 50 years old) set at f8. Able to make out the rings of Saturn and two moons of Jupiter. Hope you don't mind this composite since we never seem to see these astrological events in Portland due to the weather.

View image in gallery

[kwb]

OK, after weeks without the sun, finally we had ~50% cloud coverage here on the big day. Seeing (i.e. turbulence) was bad as you can tell from the picture (e.g. no bands in Jupiter, the planet is not even round!) but I was at least lucky enough to have been able to see and shoot the event!

Attached is the first shot of the night, which turned out to be the only reasonable one out of 972 pictures I made. This is after cropping and 50% re-scaling. Three of Galilean moons (Calisto, Io and Europa from left to right) are visible. Blue/red fringes on top/bottom of the planets are due to dispersion of the air, not the optics used. The larger the wavelength (i.e. the redder the light) the more the light is bent toward the ground. The lower the planets/stars are in the sky the stronger the effect.

I used Pentax Q7 and Orion Space Probe 3 (a Newtonian telescope with 700mm focal length and 3" aperture that cost me 100 USD including tripods some years ago, though I didn't use that tripod in this picture), ISO 400, 1/25 sec. This dirt cheap telescope gave me stupid performance per price in the past (e.g. you can see much better Jupiter from the same combination here Let's share shots with Q! - Page 433 - PentaxForums.com) but when the condition is bad there's nothing I can do about it. I'm still happy that I was able to capture something!

[baro-nite]

Despite clear skies Monday and yesterday evening, see was terrible here (NC) too. I enjoyed seeing the conjunction at its closest but won't have any photos of it, other than some I have from weeks prior which actually work better for normal focal length landscape astro-photos. On Monday I made some video of the moon, hoping for a reasonable image of the "lunar X". Playing back the video the atmosphere seems to be boiling!