Panorama Photo

Details
Location:	Terneuzen, Waterfront (66 m)	by:	Mentor Depret
Area:	Netherlands	Date:	2020 12 20 16:46 UTC 17:46 CET

Although a Saturn-Jupiter conjunction happens once every 20 years, the lastest conjunction was really exceptional because it was the closest in 397 years. On December 21st both planets were only 6.1 arcminutes apart. However in 1623 it was hard to see especially from the Northern Hemisphere. One has to go back to 1563 and 1226 to have been able to admire a similar view as the most recent. In 1226 it was even a little closer with only 2.1 arcminutes apart.
Because it was cloudy, I was not able to shoot the real climax but on the evening of December 20 we were lucky to capture what was almost the shortest distance . As you can see on this pano, both planets were really extremely close. Jupiter is the brightest and just below Saturn. Today, Jupiter has already moved to above left of Saturn.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_conjunction

The bright blue-white lighting is that of the new sea lock under construction. So light pollution in abundance here today.

Canon Eos M6 with EF-M 11-22 mm, 21 pics in two rows with same settings: sky 11 p and city 10 p RAW 22 mm (35.2 mm KB), iso 320, f 6.3, 2 s, 4400°K. Both rows processed differently, PTGuiPro 15889x5296 338.9 MB TIFF, crop to h 2541, downsized >1270>1000>500, 3127x500 476 KB JPEG

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Comments

Congratulations that you managed to get this shot done with the massive light pollution present. Did you also try some frames as higher focal length?

Herzlichst Christoph

2020/12/25 08:59 , Christoph Seger

Auf so einen Himmel hatte ich in diesen Tagen gehofft. Leider vergebens.
Deine Aufnahme stammt vom Vortag der Konjunktion. Beide Planeten sind noch getrennt wahrnehmbar. Die Distanz am 21.12. war noch geringer. Konntest du auch da Fotos machen?

Herzliche Grüße,
ich habe dich schon vermisst.

Dieter

2020/12/25 12:49 , Dieter Leimkötter

Very nice. In these days your high tower is once again perfect for shooting good pictures while staying home in the same time...

2020/12/26 19:58 , Jens Vischer

Thanks for the comments guys, appreciated.
@ Christoph: I shot a few 150 mm pics but these are not useful for a pano. Actually, I had to hurry because the clearings between the clouds were short lived. I made several panos of this event beginning early in December, taking advantage of the sparse clear skies.
@ Dieter: I mentioned in the text above that on Dec 21st it was completely cloudy here too. On December 20th, the apparent distance was the second shortest. Because the planets follow the ecliptica, you can extrapolate the orbit that Jupiter follows. On December 21st, the distance was only a fraction shorter than on this pano.
@ Jens: I agree with you, having the luxury to work on my computer and at the same time observe the sky...

2020/12/26 23:52 , Mentor Depret

Shortest distance

On Nasa's APOD site, December 23rd, you can see a telescopic view of Jupiter and Saturn when they reached their shortest apparent distance on December 21st. Because this photo was shot with the Chiliscope (southern hemisphere) you have to turn the picture upside down to compare with the positions on my pano. With this, one can estimate that the shortest distance was about 30 % less than on my pano. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap201223.html

2020/12/27 15:34 , Mentor Depret

Great that you present this special constellation in a panorama, Mentor - but the observation with the telescope was certainly even more thrilling !!!

Best regards, Hans-Jörg

2020/12/27 16:57 , Hans-Jörg Bäuerle

The main subject doesn't really lend itself to the 500Px limitation here, but the play of lights shown here is still gorgeous. Looking forward to see more views from your tower next year. Cheers, Martin

2020/12/28 20:24 , Martin Kraus