The Great Conjunction

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musicman

Lifer
Nov 12, 2019
1,119
6,052
Cincinnati, OH
If you have any interest at all in astronomy, physics, or just a curious mind, I'd encourage you to look to the SW portion of the sky tonight 30-60 minutes after sunset to see the great conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter. A conjunction, in astronomy, is when two celestial bodies appear from earth to be very close together (although, of course, they are still very far apart). A "great conjunction" refers to a conjunction of the two biggest planets in our solar system. This will be the closest the two planets will appear in the night sky in about 800 years, so it's truly a once in a lifetime astronomical event.

To the unaided eye, they will appear as if they are a close double star in the sky, and through a telescope, they will appear in the same field of view. I'll be out in the desert with the wife and two scopes, an 80mm refractor, and a 17.5 inch reflector. I had the refractor out on the deck tonight, and it was really cool to see both the cloud bands of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn in the same telescope view. Check it out, and if you have any sort of scope or binoculars, use those as well!

People are calling this a "Christmas star," which is kind of a misnomer, as they are planets, not stars, but some astronomers, such as Johannes Kepler, posited that the star of Bethlehem that is referred in the story of the Magi visit to the newborn Jesus might have been a great conjunction that occurred around that time!
 

stokesdale

Part of the Furniture Now
Apr 17, 2020
845
2,532
Stokesdale
At least we have cursive. It's a secret code the young folks cant read.?
Believe it or not, I never learned to write in cursive; I stopped attending school at 12 and officially dropped out at 16 when I was legally allowed to and simply never practiced writing in cursive. Worked on farms my entire childhood. Got my GED when I was 25 and went on to get a BS and MS in agriculture...but still never wrote in cursive, I always printed. I can read cursive no problem, just have never wrote in cursive.
 

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
The weather patterns in central North Carolina are cleverly designed to bring on a heavy cloud bank whenever any celestial event occurs. If any other aspect of weather were this predictable, I would be amazed; however, I will certainly take a look tonight, grasping my binoculars and looking for a break in the cloud bank layers. We have a planetarium in Chapel Hill, but no observatories of any kind. I don't own a telescope, but I feel that any in town are trained at neighbors' windows.
 

tomatamot

Part of the Furniture Now
May 26, 2020
634
6,187
EU
I don’t own a telescope either, but a good rifle scope or binoculars will give vast improvement over the naked eye. If you live in the city, best not use a scope still attached to the rifle though. Wouldn’t want to scare the neighbours and whatnot.

Or putt a white flag into the barrel of your riffle. ;)
 
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