Neowise Comet 2020

One coming celestial event!!!! Jupiter is catching up to Saturn, which occurs every 20 years. This time(December 21, 2020, 5:30EST?), the Saturn/Jupiter conjunction is close! Both planets will only be 1/5th the diameter of our Moon apart. Not since 1250AD(?) & not till 2080(?) will they be this close. Good eyes should be able to see them separately. But, best if you have binoculars, spotting scope or telescope. With 30 power, you should be able to see the rings around Saturn, while also seeing as many as 4(more?) of Jupiter’s big moons(I think all 4 big moons of Jupiter will be showing at the time). With more power you should see some of Jupiter’s bands, again with Saturn in the same view. My 60power Pentax camera lens should show them nicely together. Even with 100power(200power?), you still should see Jupiter & Saturn together.
With our Salish Sea(Puget Sound) weather, the clouds could easily block the celestial event.... but hopefully. Here the close conjunction will be in the daylight... not good. I might be able to see the event tho, if I can find Saturn & Jupiter in the daylight. I have seen Venus while the Sun was only 4 or 5degrees above the horizon. Finding Saturn & Jupiter in the high big sky with the Sun 1 or 2 hours from setting, will be very very tough. Finding celestial objects in bad light pollution is bad enough, maybe with a bright star within 5 or 10 degrees or so.

 

I have pretty good binoculars. I think I will try to view this !
We have been known to have clouds here , as well.

 

Hopefully from Illinois, you’ll be able to see Jupiter & Saturn, as soon as the sun goes down(~ 4:30PM, CST?)). Yes, many standard binoculars(7x35mm, 7x50mm, 10x50mm) will show the 4 big moons of Jupiter, if you can lay on the ground & brace your optic against a tree or table leg. If you can mount them on a tripod, you could even see 1 or 2 moons of Saturn, altho near sunset, that would be very very tough. But separately detailing the rings of Saturn will take 25-30power binoculars or spotting scope. I do have a nice 30x60mm spotting scope(have seen 15 inch horns on a mountain goat at 2.5 miles & 2000 feet above me), but the tripod mount got busted a decade ago. I’ll have to lay on the ground & rest the front of the spotting scope against a table leg or tree. Have the 53 power B&L reflecting spotting scope (which I might drag to the park also). But, mostly will use the 60power Pentax lens on the tripod. That’ll be good with its 2.3arcsecond splitting ability.

 

Where should I look ?

 

Look in the lower southwest just as its getting dark. Jupiter will be brighter than any star & you’ll see it as non-twinkling. Saturn will be dimmer, but seeable in fairly light polluted areas to the left of Jupiter. You can practice & find them now, while Jupiter is moving toward dimmer Saturn. I’ve been watching Jupiter & Saturn for months, as Jupiter has been gaining towards Saturn, to eventually pass the ringed planet. But the clouds have blocked my view of Jupiter & Saturn for 4 weeks now. Make sure you have a low horizon without buildings & trees.....or mountains(not hard to do in Illinois). Large lakes to your southwest would be good.

 

Please do send us pictures man, I love it too.

 

You’ll find the best pix from Hubble telescope & the other wonderful professional telescopes around the world. Some of the amateurs will also have stunning pix. My pix would just be unsharp blurs in comparison.

 

Raining this morning. Been raining for the last 20hours. Been cloudy for a month plus. Supposed to continue raining here. Anyway to delay the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction?
At least, our Salish Sea(Puget Sound) area doesn’t have the 4 feet of snow, areas back east have gotten.

 

OOOH! In the Salish Sea(Puget Sound) area, we have what they call.....Sunshine, I think? First sun in many many weeks.....years? Can someone tell me what it is? Historically, I’ve heard it said that sunshine heats us. But, we have snow on the ground now. I’m confused!

 

Missed the Jupiter-Saturn viewing last evening due to clouds here. Hoping to try again this evening, but it is clouding up again after a mostly sunny day.

 

Cloudy here , too.

 

A few hours after dark, after Saturn had long set, I could see clear skies and the moon. Oh well...

 

Since I could not see the event, I was happy to come across someone's posting as a video.

https://www.livescience.com/amp/great-conjunction-burj-khalifa.html

 

Got sunlight pouring in the window right now. Lots of blue sky outside. Maybe some astronomy tonight, we’ll see. Since clouds have blocked the sky for 2+months, the sky will be dIfferent now. I’ll have to see what my limited elevation-range tripod can get to in the sky. Really want to split Castor in Gemini, but it might be too high in the sky right now.

 

Washington state astronomy occurred last night after the clear skies during the day. As soon as I set up the tripod, camera lens & eyepiece, I looked up & said, “Where are the stars?” The clouds had rolled in. Yeah, after hours of daytime clear skies, setting up the telescope was a signal for the clouds to move in!!! So I waited. 20 minutes later, a little clearing to the east occurred & the camera lens showed Betelgeuse in Orion, 600 light-years, distance! After its deep dimming last year, Betelgeuse was good to see at its strong “10,000 times the Sun”, red glory. Before the clouds moved in again, I quickly looked at Rigel (60,000 times the Sun), 1400 light-years distance. The powerful blue of Rigel was as fascinating as red Betelgeuse.
Then I looked to the Northwest of Orion, & saw Castor & Pollux in Gemini. That was my main goal for the night & here it was showing, while the rest of the sky was covered in clouds. Quickly getting the tripod swinging to Castor, I was hoping for big things from the camera lens. Not disappointed, Castor was split into two stars with the only 60 power eyepiece for the camera lens. With much less luminosity(67 times the Sun, 51 light-years distance) than Rigel & Betelgeuse, it is good that Castor is 17 times closer than Rigel, letting Castor also appear bright in our sky. Also, if Castor was “only” three times further away from Earth, I would not be able to see this beautiful star as split!!!! Just sweet. Both stars of Castor are not as blue as Rigel, but still appear strongly white with glints of blue. I gazed & gazed at Castor, using the camera lens at different apertures to see Castor A,B give different impressions at more or lesser brightnesses. Yes, for that type of exploration, the camera lens is superior than a telescope. & then nature gave its own variations of brightness to Castor, as thin clouds began covering the double star. In truth, Castor is actually 6 stars, even tho my low power optic shows only 2.
Anyhow, not only were clouds covering the sky, the fog rolled in too, & my short evening of astronomy was over.

 

Isn't that lovely?

 

Well......had Washington state astronomy.....again tonight! This time I set up the camera lens.......& got a view of Castor, the double star...again. Also, I saw Castor C, the dim 9th Magnitude star, further from Castor A & Castor B. As stated, Castor is really 6 stars, each of the visible three stars with a hidden dimmer companion star too close to each of the 3 stars to be able to see.
Besides seeing Castor C, I also was able to try a technique, easier to accomplish with my camera lens than with actual telescopes, AND also easier in the turbulent atmosphere I had tonight, than a still, clear night, astronomers yearn for.
At widest aperture, I could easily split Castor, despite the turbulence. But the turbulence really gave each bright star spikes, as well as the images pushed about by the shakey air. The spikes from each star tended to break up the nice black split between the bright stars. As I reduced the aperture of the camera(causing the lens to act like a SMALLER TELESCOPE), the stars dimmed. But, what I really noticed was the spikes on each star, reduced even more than the stars dimmed. Yes, at one point reducing the aperture, the spikes disappeared. Altho the turbulence still made the stars shake, without the spikes, the black gap between the stars more readily solidified. Yes, I would say that under certain circumstances, a telescope of smaller aperture(smaller diameter) might be able to split stars easier than a bigger, but generally more capable telescope.
Anyhow, the clouds were moving in, as they did last night. I got a quick view of the M42 Orion Nebula, resolving the 4 bright stars of the Trapesium. Nice. Considering the turbulence.... very nice indeed!

 

Yes. It was like closing two successive sets of double doors to the short night of observing.

 

Copied from a Cloudy Nights Astronomy Site that I like, & which a poster encourages people, by observations AND EXCELLENT PHOTOGRAPHS to visit lesser observed double stars. This is one of my observations:

Got some viewing last night, & not the 15 minute peeks the clouds were giving me over the last 2+ months! Started with Castor, looking for other double stars near by, but wasn’t successful. For those with big scopes, I have plotted on my charts four 14th to 15th Magnitude galaxies(2000 to 4000 times dimmer than the human eye alone, can see) about one arcdegree south of Castor.

I moved to Orion so I could star hop from Rigel, south through a series of stars to the constellation Lepus, hoping to chase some of Chris’s Duo Shiners(double stars). Couldn’t readily find my way, but on my third try, I came onto a star that I thought might be Mu Leporis. Confirming where I was, I paddled south-southeast(SSE) to double star S473, with a two magnitude brightness difference(~ 6 times) & 20arcsecond separation, described & photographed excellently by Chris. I kept on paddling SSE, swirling past some six & seven magnitude stars & plunked down on S476, described & photographed excellently by Chris. I watched S476 for quite a while, because it is a sweet double star. But, I also dwelled on it, because despite my clumsy star-hopping, I actually got to S476!
My twistings, turnings, & increasing cold told my back that my night of observing was over.....& home I went.
Anyhow, thank you Chris.

PS (for CleanMPG readers)....Looked at Sirius, the brightest star in the sky for quite some time with the camera lens. Tho I’ve seen Sirius often with big aperture Newtonian scopes, somehow this much smaller Pentax camera lens gives pleasure the big scopes never did on visually bright individual stars. I looked at Sirius with the camera lens wide open AND with the diaphragm dialed all the way down (emulating a refractor telescope lens only 1/6th the diameter of what I call my small Pentax lens. Even at the smallest dialing, Sirius gives interesting aspects (even tho dim). So I encourage posters here, use what ever optic you have to view the Universe at night. Even an optic of only 1 inch in diameter can show interesting aspects of the brightest astronomy highlites, that will fascinate you. If you have a small spotting scope or mini-binoculars use them. Bigger optics really help, but Galileo blew the socks off the World’s knowledge of the Universe, with a rudimentary optic. If you have a tripod that will mount your optic, use it too. A tripod will double or triple your small optics’ abilities.
PS I.....Saying all that tho, NEVER NEVER use an optic to look at the Sun. The wrong optic to view the Sun will blind you in 1/1000th of a second(less?). Even if you view the Sun at “safe” light levels you can be blinded. Special astronomical filters are needed to powerfully reduce solar radiations AND filter the worst blinding frequencies of light that you may THINK is NOT blinding you, but may(will) have bad effects later. Galileo went blind in the last part of his life, probably from too much solar observing.