Happy Anniversary

Today I'm having my astronomiccal blog 8 years. At exactly December 23, 2012 my blog was kicked of. In the meantime the blog received more then 60.000 views and I posted more then 1000 blogs. 

Solargraphs 2020

Today I removed both my pinhole camera's from my garden house. Once the can opened the photopaper was dried and put under the scanner :) 600dpi.

Next the scan was edited using CS4 : negative and horizontal rotation.

Start of astronomical winter

 Today at exactly 11h02 (local time) winter starts. 

The moons of the big planets

 

Jupiter Saturn Conjunction T-1day

The grand final is foreseen for december 21 but clouds could spoil this event. Therefor everything was set for today and with great success... an open sky for one hour!

I used my Dobson 12" with a 9mm lens and took photos afocal with my iPhone 11. 

Next to this I took pictures with ASI224MC and TLAPO80/480 f/6 barlowx2. Stacking was done using AutoStakkert! and final editing using CS4. Both planets are within the field of view... wow.

Jupiter-Saturn December 19

In the openingsin the cloud I could see the close encounter of Jupiter and Saturn. No real time to allign but anyway.. I could take some pictures of this rare event. The final is foreseen for next monday december 21, 2020

Jupiter - Saturn Conjunction Series : watch now or wait till 2080

How rare are Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions? And how often are they getting close as 6.1 arcmin?
I searched the internet and found this link : https://sparky.rice.edu/~hartigan/public-night/jupsat2.html  

When looking at this list we see that a simular conjunction took place in 1563 BC and 709BC. We also see some real close encounters in 372 and 1226 BC and it is believed that this could be observed.

How close is 6.1 arcmin, the distance next december 21, 2020? Tom compare, the moon is about 0.5° or 30 arcmin. I used software Stellarium to make this more visible using the field of view of my ASI224MC camera and my 80/480mm telescoop with barlow x2

The next close Jupiter-Saturn conjunction will take place in the year 2080.