December 2020

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.

For those asking if this is a “Christmas Star” or if this is the “first time in 800 years” a Great Conjunction has occurred, please read this article! I’ve already given a detailed explanation of what’s going on in the sky past and present, so let’s enjoy the Great Conjunction For what it is!

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.

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12/15/2020 – Los Angeles

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12/16/2020 – Los Angeles

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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

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12/19/20 – Woodcrest

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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!

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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!

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Folks, thank you for following, or if this is your first time seeing this post, thanks for checking it out!

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!