Christmas Star

[hikernut]

The two planets will be much farther apart for the next conjunction in 2040, more than twice the diameter of the moon.

Here’s a article that shows night by night separation leading up to yesterday’s conjunction. Even on Dec 17th the separation was slightly less than one moon diameter.

https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essen...on-dec-21-2020

So we all have a few more nights to see a better “show” than in 2040.

Binoculars will show Jupiter’s moons, and you may notice that Saturn looks like an oval (depending on how good your eyes and the binocs are).

[BellaDL]

Originally Posted by in_newengland

I just saw it. It's cold out there! I'm not one of these people can see these things in the sky that everyone else can see but there's a half moon and to its left is a big orange "star."

It could have been Mars that you saw. I saw the Christmas star (Jupiter and Saturn) to the lower right of the moon and Mars (big orange star) to the left of the half moon from our deck last night (about 45 minutes after sunset).

We observed the Christmas star with our birding scope and could see the two planets clearly including the Saturn's rings and Jupiter's moons.

This celestial event renewed my interest in getting a high quality telescope. I find the selection of a 'right one' quite daunting with so many choices and parameters to choose. Once this pandemic is over, I may join a local astronomy club and try out different scopes before getting one.

[hikernut]

Originally Posted by BellaDL

This celestial event renewed my interest in getting a high quality telescope. I find the selection of a 'right one' quite daunting with so many choices and parameters to choose. Once this pandemic is over, I may join a local astronomy club and try out different scopes before getting one.

Public star parties are nice for this too.

Here’s the only scope I have right now. We actually use it more for birding, and it makes a nice 600mm telephoto lens. It’s good for viewing comets and star clusters, but if you want to see lots of detail on planets an 8” or larger reflecting scope is more appropriate.

https://www.televue.com/engine/TV3b_page.asp?id=26

[Lodestar]

I've always liked to attend a performance of "The Messiah" or "The Nutcracker Suite" or other local event to get into the spirit of the holiday. This year the opportunities have been nil. So the Star arriving turned out to be festive for us. At the spur of the moment we invited our neighbor to ride long.

To our surprise when we got to a good spot in the country for viewing the roads were lined with other star watchers. I said, "All we need now is some Christmas music to make this a group event" and DH regaled us with a few off-tune carols.

It was so good for my Christmas spirt to feel like I was taking part in something celebratory - a part of the human race. I'm so glad to see people rediscovering what nature has to offer when our social opportunities are limited.