As it usually happens with astrophotography, when the main event occurs the local weather has a different idea and blocks out any chance of viewing the spectacle! Something that hasn’t occurred for 400 years and won’t be as close again until March 2080.

With clear nights before and after the 21st December, the night of the conjunction or ‘Christmas Star’, I was still able to capture the below series showing Saturn and Jupiter passing by in the night sky.

I had no plans to capture a series of photos of the conjunction so they are different focal lengths, ISO values, exposure times and position in the sky and frame. I took quite a lot of images between 40mm and 150mm, the range of my telephoto lens, that did allow me to create a close up view and one showing more of the skies at time of capture that can be seen below.

During this time I did capture a few other subjects in the night skies, first one was the crescent moon close to Jupiter and Saturn on December 17 but I fear I was one night too late, a couple of captures of the waxing moon and one of the Orion Nubula.

All images captured on my Olympus OM-D EM-1 MKII with the 40-150mm 2.8 pro lens, shot in full manual with manual focusing on a tripod using the touch screen to start the three second timer to limit shake for the captures.

The Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn