The Great Conjunction of 2020

I have been watching Jupiter and Saturn drawing closer for many months as I take my late-night walks. As the close of summer brought on the darkness earlier in the day, I even had the opportunity to teach my 2-year-old how to find the pair. He subsequently passed this knowledge on to my wife—much to her surprise!

I was quite excited to hear about the possibility of seeing such a close approach. Apparently the last time they were this close was back in 1623 (the era of Galileo), and the last time they were this close in the night (and thus observable) was in the 13th century.

In the last couple of days, I became worried there would be too many clouds to make the observation at their moment of closest appearance. Throughout the Pacific Northwest, overcast skies robbed many of the opportunity, but fortunately Moscow had just enough of a break to give me a chance to see it.

The stormy skies, however, did offer an incredible sunset display as a prelude to the great conjunction:

Even the Moon was veiled by the clouds, but the skies began to open as the light faded.

I don’t have a telescope or even a particularly long lens to capture celestial objects, so I figured I would need some sort of foreground element. And when one is on the Palouse, a tractor is the natural option.

I did my best with what I had, but you should definitely check out what Austin Mann got.