Two days before the Great Conjunction of 2020 (on Dec 21) in which Jupiter and Saturn will appear at their closest in the sky in nearly four centuries, I took a wide field image of the pair low in the west on Dec 19 at around 9:50pm ACDT (click to enlarge).
Of the two brightest objects near the centre, Jupiter is at left and Saturn at right.
The planets are separated by around 16.5 minutes of arc or 0.275 degrees or a little more than half of the angular size of the full Moon. At the same time on Monday, Jupiter and Saturn will be separated by less than 6.5 minutes of arc or not much more than a tenth of a degree. On Dec 22 and 23 they will still be quite close, at almost 7.5 and 10 minutes of arc respectively.
The following screenshot from Sky Safari pro (iOS) helps with identification. Most of the moons, except for Europa, Ganymede and Callisto are not visible in the wide field image.
A cropped portion of the image (click to enlarge) shows the Galilean moons a little more clearly, including Io as a slight bump at lower left of Jupiter. Titan is barely visible at the lower left of Saturn. The resolution is not high enough to see Saturn’s rings or any detail on Jupiter.
I’m hoping that at least one or two nights early next week, the local weather will cooperate for more viewing of the conjunction.
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