Photo of the Week for December 5, 2014

One of the most impressive planetary conjunctions in recent years occurred in the early morning hours of August 18, 2014, when the night sky’s two brightest planets were just one-quarter of one degree apart, easily fitting in a telescopic field of view. It was imaged by Kevin Watson from his backyard in Oakville, Ontario. He caught the pair between tree branches with his Celestron 6-inch f/5 Newtonian reflector telescope fitted with a Nikon D7000 DSLR camera used at ISO 800 for this ¼-second exposure. Three of Jupiter’s four largest moons are visible here with the fourth faintly showing right next to the planet’s left edge (click on the image to see the full-size version).