Yesterday, December 21, 2020, Jupiter and Saturn came very close.
This time, it is a photograph of Jupiter and Saturn taken at high magnification.
Jupiter and Saturn, less than 3 hours before the closest approach, 6 minutes apart
The photo above was taken from the window of my home in Nairobi.
The time is just past 19:00 (+3).
Something seems to be synthetic, but the positional relationship between Jupiter and Saturn is not synthetic.
Jupiter and Saturn are closest to each other in Nairobi at 21:56 (+3), which is a little less than 3 hours before the closest approach.
At the closest approach three hours later, Jupiter slightly moves up the photo and slightly moves to the upper right to reach the closest approach.
At the same time, Saturn also moves up only Sukoshi.
It's a very small change, so it's safe to say that it's the closest photo.
In the photo above, as usual, the video taken with Panasonic's GH4 was processed with Regista x6. I also shot some of the original materials while shifting the exposure.
I chose good ones for each, and combined the still images created with Registax6 with some different processing methods in Photoshop to make the final image.
The lens is Nikon's old Sanyon, 300mm f4 with three teleconverters, and the total focal length is 1680mm.
Both planets are treated in the same way so that you can see the difference in brightness between Jupiter and Saturn, and it can be said that the difference in actual brightness is about this level.
However, since Jupiter's Galilean moons are dark, the same processing is too dark to capture the image, so I combined the images taken with increased exposure.
As always, planetary image processing is aimed at what you actually see with a telescope.
Even if you look through it with a telescope, it looks like this.
Previous planet-related articles also mentioned planetary image processing, so if you are interested, please take a look there.
Once in 20 years
The change in the positional relationship between Jupiter and Saturn, which I had been worried about for a while, from the summer of 2020 toward the end of the year.
The meeting between Jupiter and Saturn is a phenomenon that occurs almost every 20 years when Jupiter overtakes Saturn.
Jupiter's orbital period is 11.86 years, while Saturn's orbital period is 29.53 years.
In the summer (August), I hardly felt the change in the distance, but when the two planets approached, I felt that they seemed to move unexpectedly fast.
Therefore, I calculated how fast the movement actually is.
A little math, division time
I'm just imagining it, so I'll omit the small numbers.
360 degree movement in 20 years
18 degrees in a year
1.5 degrees in a month
0.05 degrees (3 minutes) in one day
0.125 minutes (7.5 seconds) in 1 hour
In terms of distance on earth
40,000km around the earth in 20 years
2000Km in one year
167Km in one month
5.6km in a day
231m in 1 hour
231 meters per hour.
The image of the speed and time seems to be understandable, but it is difficult to understand.
Therefore, the difference between the above photo and the reapproach after less than 3 hours is equivalent to the change in the viewing angle of the stars shining in the night sky, which changes by simply walking about 700 meters on the earth.
A very small difference, but a strong magnification with a telescope.
The movement is also magnified and looks big.
In the photo above, the angular distance between Jupiter and Saturn is about 6 minutes.
One movement in 20 years is 3 minutes a day (only the average value), which means that this distance will double in 2 days.
It seems to be slow, and when you zoom in, you can see that it is not so slow.
Shooting location and shooting method
I can't see the west sky from the roof of my house in Nairobi, so this time I took a picture from inside the house through the window.
Shooting scenery of Jupiter and Saturn closest to each other
So, I tracked it with the compact Sky Memo T made by Kenko Tokina.
Due to the equatorial mount, the lens is 300mm f4, which I introduced in my blog before.
No, the short focus lens, Nikon's old Sanyon, and some chromatic aberration are seen, but the sharpness is outstanding!
With a single focal length lens and its focal length, it can be said that the optical performance has been scrutinized.
It has a wider range of defense than a zoom lens.
This time, instead of using the magnified shooting method, I shot with three teleconverters stacked on a 300mm f4 to increase the magnifying power.
The manager himself has the same triple teleconverter setting that he uses to shoot sunspots.
I continue to shoot changes in sunspots with this Sanyon and triple teleconverter.
The performance of the tele-converter is also good, and it seems that the performance of the original lens is utilized.
The change in sunspots is also interesting and humorous when you look at it.
Take a picture of yourself and look at information such as the observatory and solar observation hygiene while delusional about solar activity.
In the future, both Jupiter and Saturn will soon be hidden behind the Sun and disappear from the night sky.
It is a little lonely that there are no two planets in the night sky.
For a while, such a lonely night will continue.
I tried to shoot one day before this close approach, but it became cloudy and I couldn't shoot.
I'm glad it was sunny on the day of the closest performance!
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