Sigrid and I joined the throngs of people viewing the planetary conjunction last night. We passed by several good viewing locations and there were lots of people jockeying for a spot at each one. I had scouted locations earlier in the day and decided on going to New Longview across the street from the Longview Community College campus in Lees Summit.
While there were bands of clouds in the sky, the planets were visible between bands while we were there. We found a good spot amidst the streams of cars and people with binoculars, telescopes, and tripod mounted cameras. A few of the people were pesky because they wanted to look at the images I was capturing and had their noses way too close to me in a Covid world. I had to run them off and it caused us to leave a little sooner than we wanted.
I have seen some nice photos posted on Facebook. Mine didn't turn out as good as I hoped for but I planned to try again the next night. Unfortunately, the skies were not clear enough to take that second set of photos. Got to wait for another 500 years for the next opportunity.
I was using a 1,200mm lens on my camera and it was very difficult to focus. Even cars driving by would cause the image to jitter. Just touching the focus ring would cause the planets to jump out of the viewfinder. You have to use manual focus on photos like these.
The moon was looking good so I took a photo of it and it was so much easier.
The first photo shows both Jupiter and Saturn with rings. The moons of Jupiter don't show due to the editing and a lack of lighting.
This photo shows Jupiter and its moon. Saturn is there but you can't make out the rings.
The moon was much easier to photo and was very clear and bright that night.
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