This was an event that I looked forward to once the stroke of midnight hit on New Years Eve 2019. This once in a lifetime event was surely one to get the word out as much as possible. While I was initially going to have a large viewing party planned for the celestial event, once the Covid-19 Pandemic took over almost every aspect of life, including the prohibiting of public gatherings. then yours truly had to lay low, and keep any viewing opportunities as private as possible. But there wasn’t anything in the rule book that said I couldn’t capture it through my astrophotography work!
I was also very fortunate throughout the harsh 2020 to have the opportunities for astrophotography opening up from the Observatory, and I was assigned special projects in the building which meant more chances I could get amazing wide field conjunction shots over LA, which is what I did as the Conjunction was reaching the home stretch.
Here is a gallery that shows Jupiter and Saturn further apart starting from the Summer of 2019. Jupiter is visible as the brightest “star” in each of the following images, and Saturn is visible as the “second brightest star.” You can see the differences in where the two planets were in 2019, early 2020, versus now.
Milky Way over Amboy Crater – Summer 2019Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn rising over Rice. March 2020Milky Way over Cottonwood Campground – July 2020In 2019, Jupiter was west of the “Galactic Center” but by the beginning of 2020, Jupiter was east. In March, Mars was temporarily between Jupiter and Saturn until if moved away due to its faster orbit. Over the summer of 2020, the two planets were in opposition and retrograde, and remained about 5 degrees apart until the Fall Months arrived. This was taken on December 2 after Sunset over Hollywood. Jupiter and Saturn were still about 2 degrees away.
12/15/2020 – Los Angeles
The Waxing Crescent Moon was seen over Century City From the Observatory. First Shot is a wide angle showing the conjunction on top. Second shot just showcases the Moon over the skyline. That star next to the Moon is Nunki (σ Sgr or Sigma Sagittari)
12/16/2020 – Los Angeles
The Waxing Crescent Moon Temporarily joined the party on this night. If you click on the images and look closely, you can see two of Jupiter’s Moons, Callisto and Ganymede also visible next to Jupiter in the images! The background stars in the closeup image are the Sagittarius Constellation.
I tried to get the grouping when it was much lower, but unfortunately, the Moon set early behind some distant low clouds over the ocean. On this night, the two planets were about half a degree away from each other, or the equivalent to the diameter of the Moon’s disc as seen from Earth.
12/18/20 – Woodcrest
I dealt with wind and a lot of turbulence in the sky this night, but managed an okay composition showing both the rings and the Galilean Moons.
12/19/20 – Woodcrest
The Moon deserved attention too! The Conjunction is less than 10 degrees above the horizon in this picture. The seeing was much better over Woodcrest, but not much. The results were much better in the processing, which involved a wide frame for Jupiter’s Moon’s, a frame for Jupiter’s clouds, and a frame for Saturn’s rings.
12/20/20 – Woodcrest
This time I held a small gathering of some family and close friends, and all of them got to enjoy the view through my scope after I was done gathering data for the image!
My mother took this picture of me doing my work! While the planets were separated by around 7-8 arc minutes (1/4 full moon diameter), the two planets looked great at 5pm. In this shot, I took a 4 second exposure to get the two gas giants largest moons to show up, and layered two stacked separate images for Jupiter and Saturn. This time the red spot shows up better!
Winter Solstice 2020 – Woodcrest
The moment you’ve all been waiting for! The conditions over Southern California couldn’t have been any more perfect! Another small gathering got to witness the majestic event, and that meant more to me than all the times I did all the heavy lifting setting up and breaking down!
The old scope got brought out of retirement! A family also brought their C11 I helped refurbish, and their scope eased the load off me when I needed to take the pictures! Taken around 6:00 pm. The two planets disappeared below the trees 30 minutes later.
As this celestial event occurred during the “wet season” over Southern California, after December 21, the next few days were drenched in rain and cloud cover; so I didn’t observe the two gas giant planets separate while still remaining close by.
Jupiter and Saturn will continue to “separate” in the sky due to Jupiter’s motion usually lasting one year in front of a respective Zodiac constellation, while Saturn spends about 3-4 years. They’ll appear on opposite sides of the sky around 2029-2031, and then Jupiter will start inching closer to Saturn for another “great conjunction” on November 4, 2040… only they won’t appear anywhere near as close as they did in 2020… over 72 arc minutes (‘) separation in 2040 versus 6′ separation in 2020. The next time they will appear ~6′ apart will be on March 15, 2080! After that, it’ll be in 2140 when they appear 14′ apart, and it’ll be the closest they appear together until 2358 when they appear 18.5’ apart.
This truly was a special once in a life time event, and while some of you who are reading this may get the chance to see the encore performance in 2080 (if still alive, this author will be 92 years old by then!), it cannot be emphasized enough that Great Conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn where they appear extremely close to each other, almost like a double planet, is super rare, and surely not one to miss!
Folks, thank you for following, or if this is your first time seeing this post, thanks for checking it out! I hope you got a chance to see the 2020 appearance
When you’re in tune with what’s going in the sky, you treat a once in a lifetime event like this not by just waiting for the correct moment, but you observe as much as you can, just in case you miss out!
ORION BEAR ASTRONOMY 