The actual date when the planets will be closest together in the sky will be on the solstice. Those in the know say the last time folks on earth saw it this bright and this close was in the middle ages

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/jupiter-saturn-form-rare-double-150300723.html

We (a group of skywatching friends) plan to get out to a more remote. less light polluted, location. Hoping for a clear night closer to the actual event and are scouting out where we might get a better look.

I shot Comet Neowise back in August. That taught me how little I knew about night sky photography and how inadequate my equipment was: The coming conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn - image 1 - student project

Since then I have a newer camera and recently got an old Minolta telephoto lens on eBay. A full 2 lbs of old glass.

So this project is a bit different than the milky way or wide angle shot of the sky.

Your class was extremely helpful for me to get these shots. I used the principles you suggested. Manual mode, Tripod, Different ISOs, Shutter Speeds, Light painting.

The coming conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn - image 2 - student project The shots were simply taken in the back yard over the past couple of nights. The sky was clear but we are in a light polluted area.

The coming conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn - image 3 - student project

I was shooting at F-11 and F-18. My first shots were with ISO = 2500 and I backed that off to 1600 based on what I had to do in editing. I might push that up again as the fist shots showed 2 of the 4 Galilean moons. There is an app to know where the are and when.

The coming conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn - image 4 - student project

I didn't capture them last night. Not sure if was ISO or if they were all on the back side of Jupiter. So another experiment and referral to the app. The above is set for 22 Dec 2020. I hope that conditions an settings will be favorable for catching all 4 of those moons,

I did "crop in" using "original format"

The RAW pics are too large to import so I had to play with the images

So on to the pix:

The coming conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn - image 5 - student project Above 2 moons to the Right of Jupiter. Light painting on the branches.

The coming conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn - image 6 - student project

The coming conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn - image 7 - student project At first I did not like the above^^^ as the limbs were occluding the planets, but in the end I sort of liked how they seem to be playing peekaboo with the camera.

The coming conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn - image 8 - student project Above ^^^ no moons seen near Jupiter which is on the R

Here is some of the metadata (not very complete owing to the lens being old, slow, heavy glass (not autofocus) The coming conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn - image 9 - student project

The coming conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn - image 10 - student project

Kenneth Hieke

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