Jupiter Saturn Conjunction at dusk Dec 21

We are just a month away from an extraordinarily close conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn on December 21, 2020. They will be only 8 arc minutes apart, both easily in the field of view at the same time with a high power telescope. My plan for imaging this event from Austin, Texas, with a small telescope and planetary video camera is shown in the Sky Safari captures below.

Jupiter and Saturn in the SW at Sunset at 5:30 CST.

An hour later at nautical dusk the pair of planets will still be 15 degrees above the horizon. The figure below shows how they will appear in a ZWO ASI224MC planetary camera at prime focus in a Questar 1280/89mm telescope. They should look fantastic by eye and with other camera framing as well.

I captured a conjunction of Venus and Jupiter with a bit more distance between the planets in 2016 :

Conjunction of Venus and Jupiter

Content created: 2020-11-20

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