The christmas star - The great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn

By -

The last months, it became obvious that Jupiter and Saturn were nearing each other.  On the night of December 21, 2020, Jupiter and Saturn only were in conjunction and separated only by 6'6''. Due to the bad weather on this night, I could not observe the closest encounter.  Luckily, on December 20, the weather was very nice.  With the naked eye, the view was already nice, but with my 20cm travel dobsonian, the view was really amazing.  Both Jupiter and Saturn were visible in the field of view, even using my 5mm Nagler eyepiece (160x). The weather was not stable enough to use the 18'' Obsession.  The planets were located very low above the horizon anyway, so using the 18'' Obsession was not an option.

The days before the conjunction, the weather was sometimes clear for a while in the evening, so I could take some pictures to see how the planets closed in to each other.  

Jupiter and Saturn on December 20, 2020.

Jupiter and Saturn on December 18, 2020

Jupiter, Saturn and the Moon on December 18, 2020

Jupiter and Saturn on December 15, 2020

Jupiter and Saturn on December 10, 2020

Jupiter and Saturn on December 5, 2020

Jupiter and Saturn on December 4, 2020

Jupiter and Saturn on November 28, 2020

Location: 3370 Roosbeek, België

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Installing an ASA AZ800 in the observatory at work

By -
Image
On August 30, 2023 we installed an ASA AZ800 telescope in the observatory at work, at the  Institute of Astronomy  of KU Leuven .  The telescope will be one of the telescopes of the MARVEL project, an array of four telescope we will install on the Roque de los Muchachos in La Palma,  It was a very rainy day, but we managed to put the telescope in the observatory.  Enjoy some of the pictures! The upper part of the telescope in the corridor. The lower part of the telescope ready for lifting up. The lower part of the telescope going up. The lower part of the telescope entering the dome. The upper part of the telescope entering the dome. The installed telescope.
Read more

Interstellarum Deep Sky Atlas

By -
Image
For Father's day, I got the field edition of the  Interstellarum Deep Sky Atlas .  In the past, I always used the first edition of Uranometria 2000.0 by Will Tirion, which was published in 1987!  I was always very happy with the Uranometria and I always preferred the first edition over the second edition.  I never took the book outside, but I made a copy of every page which I put in a sheet protector.  I took the pages in a big folder outside to starhop through the skies.    The Interstellarum Deep Sky Atlas comes in a nice sturdy slipcase. The last years, I mostly observed from home (Bortle 5), so I mostly observe bright objects.  Since last year, I added a SkyFI 3  to my Argo Navis / ServoCat so I can use SkySafari to always have a map on my phone or my tablet.  However, a real star atlas has a nicer overview, which is very useful when observing.  Under dark skies, a good star atlas is really needed to find the faintest objects. A nice card with the legend of the atlas The nice t
Read more

Adhesive felt on the Obsession

By -
Image
The interior of my Obsession's mirror box is not entirely black.  I am unsure whether it has always been this way or whether the black paint has faded over time.  I still had a lot of black adhesive felt lying around from a previous project.  I applied this adhesive felt to the mirror box of the Obsession telescope, making it considerably darker than before.  This will undoubtedly improve the contrast of the faint objects I intend to observe.  Part of the mirror box with adhesive felt, a part is still with the original paint. Adhesive felt installed in the mirror box. The original paint in the mirror box.
Read more