The Great Conjunction

[wfooshee]

Unless you've stayed in a cave or under a rock, you all know that Jupiter and Saturn joined each other in the sky for their closest appearance together in centuries. My photography group was inundated with shots by everyone and his dog, showing the planets together in one frame of the camera. Most used telescopes, which is a distinct advantage to getting an image. i.e. Cheating.

I don't have a telescope or access to one, and on this night I didn't even have a tripod, as I was traveling out-of-state for work. I bumped up the ISO, set the aperture as wide as it would go, and threw out some handheld attempts at speeds from 1/250th to 1/500th. I also tried to set the camera on the roof of the car, using my wadded up jacket as a "platform" and the self-timer to trigger the shutter, but longer exposures, while they gathered more light (and even made the moons of Jupiter clearly visible, all had horrible motion streaking and were not exactly keepers.

I could have saved myself some time and just gone on to dinner, as the one keeper I had was the first shot I took, 1/320th and ISO400, and brought up a bit in Photoshop, with some heavy noise filtering. Jupiter is just a white blob, no moons are visible, but I got Saturn's rings!!!! On a plain old digital SLR with a 300mm lens! I never expected to actually resolve the rings, I was just hoping for something I could learn from. Maybe.

This doesn't compare to those shots you've seen from backyard telescopes, but I did it with a D7200 and a 70-300mm zoom lens, handheld!!!

 

[biknflyfisher]

That is fantastic!

 

[Bugnatr]

Nice!

I have a really cheap *** bottom of the barrel 24 year old telescope.  Night after the big one it was clear and I did get a good look at the planets and a few moons. Hard to hold the telescope still but worth the effort.

I believe Saturn is easier to see when it is higher in the sky and not in the setting position.

 

[Bounce]

Nice. Never thought until now that I could use my spotting scope and my "PhoneScope" attachment to using my cell photo to video and still with it.

 

[wfooshee]

I believe Saturn is easier to see when it is higher in the sky and not in the setting position.

Anything is, as when it's high in the sky, there's a lot less air distorting the view! Astronomers call that "air mass," and if straight up is 1 air mass, something on the horizon is seen through 38 air masses. Looked at another way, straight up is 60 miles to "space," maybe a hundred miles to air actually thin enough something orbiting will stay there a good while. Multiply that by 38 to get how many miles of air you're looking through for something at the horizon.  The current earliest view of Saturn as it gets dark enough to see is probably through at least 25 air masses, but that's just me guessing, not something I actually calculated.

 

[SouthernCruizer]

Don't fall for it guys...it's all CGI. We all know the Earth is flat, and so is Saturn!

 

[hppants]

That is a terrific picture, considering no tripod.  My father, who is an accomplished shutter bug (multi-award winning), didn't get anything close to that, and I'm told whatever he brought to the occasion was about the equivalent in value of "1/2 a pickup truck".

Well done!

 

[Bounce]

Don't fall for it guys...it's all CGI. We all know the Earth is flat, and so is Saturn!

Butt Uranus is HUGE!

 

[SouthernCruizer]

Butt Uranus is HUGE!

In all fairness, it was smaller before my 3 yr stint in Cell Block C. 

 

[harper]

I got one clear evening in Seattle, two days past optimal, to view this. I have a 4.5" reflector that I set up in a park with a good viewing location. I was able to get Jupiter with three of the Galilean moons and Saturn and its rings all in the same field of view. The problem was all of the needy people that came by and whimpered until they got to take a look. Karen and I did see a friend of ours up there with her entire brood. That just meant I had to keep adjusting the tripod and barrel rotation for leprechauns of varying shortness. Great opportunity. I can't see how the OP could get that shot with a handheld camera but then my hands are shaky like an unbalanced washing machine.

 

[SacramentoMike]

But no pic?  Or at least one of the leprechauns.

 

[harper]

I don't have a camera mount on my telescope. I think the mom of the leprechauns took a photo through the ocular with her iPhone. I know she took a photo of me and two of the peewees and it was fortunately dark enough that you can't make out any of my features.  iPhone lenses are a pretty good fit to telescope eyepieces and the mom is an outstanding amateur photographer with her real camera but I don't remember a shot of the planets worth keeping.

 

[kebo123]

Nicely done video

not mine, but from here.