Jupiter-Saturn Conjunction of December 21, 2020

As a follow-up to John’s posting of the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction, I thought I would post the below image.  This is a composite image of the individual planets from a number of videos taken that evening.  The videos were taken very early after sundown to take advantage of the elevation of the planetary conjunction and the somewhat better seeing that provided.  The telescope was a polar mounted 12” Meade LX200GPS with a 3.3 focal reducer using a Watec 910 HX black and white camera. Each short video was made with an exposure appropriate for the planet as Jupiter is significantly brighter than Saturn.  A slightly longer exposure was also taken to get the three moons of Jupiter.  The better image of each planet from the videos was then cut and pasted into this 720 by 480 composite. The relative positions of the planets is somewhat different than John’s Stellarium rendition, as in this one north is up.

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