Jupiter / Saturn conjunction of 2020

The actual Jupiter / Saturn conjunction happens 3 days later (on December 21, 2020), but December 18 was the only day with clear skies around here (weeks of cloudy weather before and after), so here is my attempt at imaging this special event, on December 18.

 

The two planets were already close enough (~20 arc min apart) to fit into my astrocamera SVbony SV305 (1920x1080 pixels), attached to the prime focus of my 150mm/F5 Newtonian. I took a 6-minunte sequence of 12-bit images using SharpCap - around 4000 frames at 1920x1080 pixels (4 ms exposures), then stacked them together using AutoStakkert software (using 30% of the best frames). Then I reduced the brightness of Jupiter (so it's easier to see both planets), and sharpened the whole image using wavelets (Registax 6 software).

 

In addition to the two planets, one can also see the four largest moons of Jupiter (see my next image, with labels). With increasing contrast, one can even see the largest moon of Saturn - Titan (see my another image).

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Uploaded on December 19, 2020