Conjunction Selfie
Taken by Alan Dyer on December 19, 2020 @
near Gleichen, Alberta
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Camera Used: Canon Canon EOS 6D Mark II
Exposure Time: 15/1
Aperture: f/2.8
ISO: 1600
Date Taken: 2020:12:19 21:12:57
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Details:
A selfie shooting the "great conjunction" of Jupiter and Saturn on December 19, 2020, two nights before the closest approach of the two planets. The inset shows the image I took a few minutes earlier through the telescope at left.
By the time I took this selfie the planets had dropped into the clouds again and only Jupiter was visible to the camera, and here it is out of focus in the distance at lower right, as I focused for the foreground. So the planets were low!
The planets were less than 1/4 degree apart (13 arc minutes) this night, but with the clouds I was lucky to capture them at all. Only the Galilean moons of Jupiter showed up, and fuzzy, but not any of the moons of Saturn.
I am shooting the planets with a Celestron SE6 tube assembly on the Sky-Watcher EQM-35 mount and with the Canon 60Da cropped frame camera, for maximum magnification. I placed the scope at the end of my driveway so I could get a clear shot to the southwest.
The inset shows the image I shot through the telescope a few minutes earlier (before I shot the selfie) when the planets were a little higher up in the clear break visible here. The closeup inset is a stack of 4 x 4-second exposures with the Canon 60Da at ISO 800, and at the f/10 prime focus of the scope, so at 1,500mm focal length.
The bright glow at upper left of the main image is the waxing crescent Moon in clouds, and it is creating a refraction-effect "moondog" in the clouds at right.
The main selfie image is a single 15-second exposure at f/2.8 and with the Canon 35mm lens and Canon 6D MkII at ISO 1600.
Photographer's website:
https://www.amazingsky.com
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