Saw Jupiter and Saturn

[question everything]

Yesterday was too cloudy but this evening we caught it from the highest point of Hennepin County in Plymouth.

Jupiter is always the brightest spot in the sky and Saturn was "two inches" to its right. With the aid of binoculars could see that Saturn was elongated, the hint of the rings.

No, no photos. My brand new iPhone does not have night vision or, at least, have not found it yer..

[Wicked Blue]

1. Is it about 10 o clock above and left of the moon?

Part of the sky here is cloudy and all I know is that it's in the south-southwest

[question everything]

3. No. Opposite direction. Right above the horizon

[Wicked Blue]

4. Thank you

Our horizon is too cloudy to see anything

[Thekaspervote]

2. Watched last night...really clear sky. We are pretty far north so not as spectacular as some views

[progree]

5. Hmm, you were determined. I've been looking for it after sunset for about 2 weeks

at least, it's always cloudy. Based on the forecasts last night, today (Tuesday) and Wednesday looked hopeless, but I was going to look anyway at around 530 pm, but forgot. It was about 700 pm when I thought of it, and went outside, not expecting to see it because it would have set by then.

But went out just to check the weather, and it was 80% cloudy all over but there were breaks in the clouds (I'm just to your east in Golden Valley). I saw the moon thru the clouds, so I figure I probably could have seen Jupiter through thin clouds if I had gotten out earlier. (Saturn would require almost perfect clearness to see that close to the horizon). But anyway, scratch another night.

This says Thursday is a good chance: Mostly clear at the 5pm and 6pm hours and clear at 7pm and later. 7pm is too late so the mostly clear will have to do.
https://weather.com/weather/hourbyhour/l/USMN0837:1:US

Map of the sky for a given time and location -
https://in-the-sky.org/skymap2.php

ETA: did you know the 7.5% AGI threshold for medical deductions has been made permanent (instead of reverting back to 10%)? It has.

The new stimulus deal includes 6 tax breaks that could help Americans, Yahoo Money, 12/22/20
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tax-breaks-in-the-new-coronavirus-stimulus-bill-205300030.html

Late edit 12/23 1230 AM Central time: Now that I think about it, I think way back in 2010 or so the medical deduction threshold shifted from 7.5% of AGI to 10% of AGI as one of the ways to pay for the ACA expenses like the premium subsidies. So I'm wondering with the shift back to 7.5%, if the ACA is being even more defunded.

[question everything]

6. Yes, Thursay was bright but after frightening drive to the grocey, we stayed home put

Still did manage to capture them in a photo.

Jupiter, again, is the bright spot, Saturn is very faint on its right, about 2 mm away



Certainly not as awe striking as some of the images posted here still, first time with my iPhone..

[progree]

7. Was that photo on the 21st (Monday)? Or the 24th (Thursday)

"Jupiter, again, is the bright spot, Saturn is very faint on its right, about 2 mm away"

Actually, yours is the best I've seen, and I've seen about 4 or 5 posted by DU members -- they were all with substantial magnification, so though cool, I was wondering what it looked like to the naked eye, particularly the distance between Jupiter and Saturn as viewed by the naked eye, and your photo shows that.

Also shows how dim Saturn appears that low on the horizon to the naked eye... sure, it would be a little brighter with a little more sky darkness, but not much.

I finally saw it on the 24th, 3 days after the Grand Conjunction (my first chance in more than 2 weeks because of cloudiness), and I'd say it was about 2/3 of a moon's width distance between Jupiter and Saturn. And by moon's width, I'm thinking of the width of the moon when it's high in the sky, not its width at near the horizon when it's as big as a barn.

I asked Google how close the two were as compared to the width of a full moon, and it said

"On the evening of Dec. 21, the planets Jupiter and Saturn will appear closer together than in centuries, only a tenth of a degree apart, or one-fifth the width of the full moon."

I saw other search results that said 1/3 and 1/4 the width of the moon. Anyway, now I know.

[question everything]

8. On Tuesday, the 22nd. Monday was cloudy and Wednesday we had a bit of snow..