Tuesday night, after a rainy and grey afternoon, the clouds broke up enough so I could see the one-day-old Grand Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. They were already moving apart, and if I'd really really wanted to see the conjunction on Monday night, I would have hopped into the car and gone some place like Crater Lake. Tuesday night was clear enough to also show the Half Moon inching closer to Mars near the meridian.
Around five, I set up the tripod and camera across the street and snapped a few photographs. Since it was shining on our rooftop anyway, with a little repositioning I was able to compose a shot of our Holiday Star and the planets. Spencer's Humans were coming out of their house, and I called them over to see the conjunction and briefly commiserate about Monday's cloud cover.
Later Mark and I went walking a little after six to the top of the hill and managed to catch the pair before they sunk behind the south hills (and it turned out there were some clouds coming in from the west). Saturn was very clearly a dimmer companion to Jupiter, and we wondered how someone might confuse it with The Star of the East without throwing Venus into the mix.
We found a spot on the hill near the place where I photographed comet NEOWISE last Summer (which seems like an eon ago) and gazed at the conjunction. Mark seemed surprised that a planetary viewing could lead to smooching; I think he suspected supposed astrological romantic influence. "They're just rocks, and they're actually really far apart," he said before I kissed him again.
No comments:
Post a Comment