The "Christmas Star" and Winter Solstice

When I heard about the "Christmas Star" otherwise known as the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, it gave me a great excuse to get out of the house and try and photograph it. Since it was nicknamed the Christmas Star, I thought it would be nice to have a bit of Christmas in the scene, with the Nativity. Fortunately the local church had a Nativity scene out in the right direction.

The Christmas Star is over Joseph and to the left a bit.

I tried various lenses and distances, but never got quite what I wanted.

So then I took out the telephoto lens and tried for a closeup. Wow! I was very happy with this. I could see Saturn up high, and it looked a little oval with its rings. And below I could see Jupiter with four of her moons.

For winter solstice morning, I wanted to go out to the Baker Archaeological Site, where the Fremont culture had set up their buildings to celebrate different astronomical occurrences, such as the solstice. There weren't any clouds in the sky, so I knew it wouldn't be a dramatic sunrise. It was cold, and some friends showed up, and we shivered and laughed together and enjoyed the early morning light on the nearby mountains.

The sunrise was a little later than they said because it had to come up over the mountains. It came up so fast!

It made me feel good watching the sunrise on the solstice from this spot. And I was also happy thinking about how the days are going to get longer now for the next six months. It's not the most fun when the sun goes behind the mountains at 3:15 pm. 

That night I went back to try again with the Christmas Star.

I still couldn't get what I wanted, but I did get a nice view of the moon!

I tried again another night at a different location, but Jupiter and Saturn were running away from each other fast. The moment had passed, and even though I didn't get on camera what I wanted, the photos remind me of the cool things that we can view up in the sky. Here's to a fun astronomical year in 2021!