Fireball 7964-2020 Heralds the Great Conjunction

Here are a my conjunction images.  

12/20/2020 note great red spot showing on Jupiter

Great Conjunction 12/21/2020
day of closest approach

You'll note that Jupiter (which has four bright moons) appears to have 5 moons in the first image, but only 3 on the day of closest approach!?  In the first, a background star is in disguise as a moon, while in the second, Ganymede is attempting to hide from view as it crosses the surface of the planet (see annotated versions below).  

12/20/2020

12/21/2020

The event was heralded by a fireball (bright meteor) seen by thousands.  It ocurred at 5:11 PM pacific, less than 30 minutes after sunset with the southern sky still bright blue, making this the brightest I've ever seen.  It looked like a firework with sparkles.  Scott Young from our astronomy club put it better: "I was looking directly at the planets and the fire ball came from the north and traveled south.  It burned up just after falling below the planets.  Long streak with lots of fragments and a burst just before the burnout.  I'm sure it was an Ursid".  About 10 minutes after seeing it, I made a quick sketch as it was hard for me to describe the direction:

you can see why i take pictures :)

There were documented sightings from Santa Barbara to San Diego:

very tall astronomers

It has been labled as event 7964-2020 by the American Meteor Society.  More info at links below:

American Meteor Society log of event 7964-2020 -includes video
december meteor forcast
ursid meteor shower

Image Details:

Imaging rig including telescope for telescope for telescope. 
hedge obstructs low southern horizon :(

The conjunction images are composites of multiple exposures: short tight crops at high frame rates for each planet.  a combined image of the two planets with saturn much more faint relative to jupiter than in the composite.  a longer exposure for the jovian moons, still longer for titan, and longest with a stretch for the faint moons of saturn.  

Takahashi FS 102 at 820 mm, ZWO ADC, Baader IR/UV block filter, ZWO ASI 290 MC
captures ranged from 0.34 ms exposures at 400 fps to 100 ms at 8 fps
Eastbluff, CA 12/20/20 and 12/21/20

Gas giants 2020 including disturbance in jupiter's NEZ with methane filter

 Taking a break from conjunction processing to post these larger images of the gas giants:

Saturn 9-25-2020 03:49 UTC RGB

Saturn 9-25-2020 03:49 UTC RGB

Jupiter 9-25-20 03:23 UTC
note white dot in the upper band, a disturbance in the northern equatorial zone noted this past summer

Jupiter 9-25-20 03:23 UTC Methane filter
enhancing disturbance in upper atmosphere of NEZ
(white dot upper half)

Methane RGB

Jupiter 9-25-20 03:23 UTC Methane filter as red, green, blue
enhancing disturbance in upper atmosphere of NEZ

Previous post with more information on jupter images with a methane filter:

https://astrowhw.blogspot.com/2019/10/jupiter-methane-filter.html

image details:

celestron 11" Edge HD

ZWO ASI 290MM

zwo RGB filters

Baader methane 889 nm 8 nm bandwidth

sharpened in registax

combined in winjupos

Jupiter: 9-25-20 03:23 UTC

Saturn 9-25-2020 03:49 UTC

no sign of the hex :(

fair seeing

Eastbluff

Southern California

winter is coming...a geminid

Here a few wide fields and my attempt at imaging the classic winter meteor shower, the geminids (night before peak which was clouded out).  

Orion Rising...winter is coming.  when you see orion rising in the early evening, winter is on the way.  note Betelguese (red "shoulder" upper left) no longer faded:

Orion rising 12/12/20
have to do something about that fence :(

here are a few hours worth of star trails.  only one sad meteor, can you find it?

Star trails 12/12/20

close up:

a geminid

Localized:

a geminid 12/12/20

image details:
12/12/20, eastbluff, CA

Bortle white skies
nikon D850
Sigma 15mm F/5 EX DG fisheye
30 sec, iso 200

Uranus 12/1/2020 07:15 UTC

Uranus 12/1/2020 07:15 UTC IR(685)-RGB
Planetary north up

Image details:

camera ZWO ASI 290MM

ZWO RGB, Baader IR pass 685 nm filters

celestron 11" Edge HD

East Bluff, CA

12/1/20 07:15 UTC

fair seeing 3/5 on clear dark sky clock

120 second captures, 2x each color filter, 3 sets of 3 for IR 685

gain 456 , exposure ~12 ms red, 5 ms green, 8 ms blue, 31 ms IR 685 30% histogram

upsampled x2 in autostakkert, derotated in winjupos.

initial wide field capture with moons key to alignment in winjupos.  

oriented planetary north up.  

color balance-eyeballed ;)

tried a methane filter...not enough signal

RGB only:

Uranus 12/1/2020 07:15 UTC RGB