Jupiter & Neptune conjunction

It was a struggle, but I did manage to capture it.

Most of the day had been cloudy, but it started to clear at about 19:00. Jupiter was visible as I walked out to the observatory, but was clouded out again by the time I got the scope pointed to it. I waited around a bit, and finally got a few minutes (through a leafless tree on the horizon) right before the pair set.



Pencil on paper sketch through 16" Mak-Cass, inverted and colourized in Photoshop.

-- Jeff.

Hi,

Yes, Jeff, it was a nice view of Neptune and Jupiter and its moons. Very similiar to the view I got at 80x through the scope (as below).

I took an image (with a DSLR) through the 130mm reffractor at 17:55 UT this evening (2009 Dec 21).
homepage.eircom.net/~vsn/

Its on the homepage. Just out the field of view was my nasty neighbour - a sodium street light.

John

Nice photo, John!

It looks like I got my moons spread out a bit too much. (It's very hard to judge when you can't see any field stars.)

-- Jeff.

Jeff - really nice sketch - love the colour rendering - Jupiter is very realistic. Neptune is as I would expect to see it (though never have).

John nice shot. A pitty about the sodium lamp - but you still caught the configuration of the galilean moons and recorded Neptune under the circumstances.

Further - it's nice to see both images compliment each other.

Mark

Nicely done Jeff. How long would the 2 planets be in such close proximity to each other like this before you wouldn't get them in a particular field of view?

Seanie.

Thanks, everyone.

Seanie --

With my instrument last night and the night before were about it.

But most scopes show a wider field, and the two are still within 1° of each other through Friday. (Magnifications will of course have to be lower, so it might be harder to get any detail on Jupiter's disk -- but then the fog/low clouds/tree branches were hampering me so I didn't get much either.)

Cheers,
-- Jeff.