Here are some shots of the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn from the late afternoon to early evening on December 18th. These where all taken at a 4096mm focal length and using a Canon full Frame DSLR in 4K video in order to stack the frames. With this format both planets just barely fit into the the video frame, however they will be at there closest on December 21st and skies permitting I hope to get some more shots then. The planets are low on the south western horizon just after sunset. Due to there low altitude there a lot of atmospheric distortion which the stacking helps with but can only do so much. There was also a fair amount of atmospheric dispersion (the air acting like a prism splitting out the colors that I could partially correct for my slightly shifting the red and blue channels of the image.
This is the closest conjunction since July 16th 1623 and Jupiter and Saturn won't be this close again until March 15th 2080. Note: the 1623 conjunction was not visible from most northern latitudes due to the conjunctions proximity to sun at the time.

The first shot below was taken at just after 4:30PM in the late afternoon and there was some high cloudiness giving a slightly milky appearance to sky, the contrast was jacked way up to bring out the planets during this daytime shot.

The next shot was taken right at sunset, in this image the high clouds show some redden from the setting sun.

The next shot was taken after it had gotten dark enough to catch the planetary moons. This is actually a composite image made with different exposures for Jupiter, Saturn and there respective moons so that I could bring out the planets and there moons with out blowing out Jupiter and Saturn due to the great difference in brightness of all these objects (download is best to see the moons).
The next sequence shows the images used to create the composite image.
All comments, questions and suggestions are welcome.

Here are some shots of the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn from the late afternoon to early evening on December 18th. These where all taken at a 4096mm focal length and using a Canon full Frame DSLR in 4K video in order to stack the frames. With this format both planets just barely fit into the the video frame, however they will be at there closest on December 21st and skies permitting I hope to get some more shots then. The planets are low on the south western horizon just after sunset. Due to there low altitude there a lot of atmospheric distortion which the stacking helps with but can only do so much. There was also a fair amount of atmospheric dispersion (the air acting like a prism splitting out the colors that I could partially correct for my slightly shifting the red and blue channels of the image.
This is the closest conjunction since July 16th 1623 and Jupiter and Saturn won't be this close again until March 15th 2080. Note: the 1623 conjunction was not visible from most northern latitudes due to the conjunctions proximity to sun at the time.

The first shot below was taken at just after 4:30PM in the late afternoon and there was some high cloudiness giving a slightly milky appearance to sky, the contrast was jacked way up to bring out the planets during this daytime shot.

The next shot was taken right at sunset, in this image the high clouds show some redden from the setting sun.

The next shot was taken after it had gotten dark enough to catch the planetary moons. This is actually a composite image made with different exposures for Jupiter, Saturn and there respective moons so that I could bring out the planets and there moons with out blowing out Jupiter and Saturn due to the great difference in brightness of all these objects (download is best to see the moons).
The next sequence shows the images used to create the composite image.
All comments, questions and suggestions are welcome.