Smiley Face and Tool Bag Conjunction

I know what you're thinking, Bob the conjunction is over........let it go." Never Give Up, Never Surrender" I always say, well ever since I heard it on Galaxy Quest.

Priyank on his awesome travels was coming down from a mountain at a height of 3900m in Paro in the Kingdom Of Bhutan when he noticed a celestial gathering and thought cool, he better take a picture, good thing. He saw it before us in the west when the Moon was below the planets making a cute smiley face. well done Priyank!! A pair of 3D glasses are on their way to you.


I was in such a funk the last couple days, what I call "Post Conjunction Syndrome". From everybody talking about the conjunction........well mostly me talking to everybody about the conjunction to nothing, plus, always being cloudy. Well my wife was going out yesterday to meet with some of her friends, I thought score!! Turn up the old Peavey Bandit, grab a guitar, add a little distortion for flavor and play some of those Twelve-bar blues, nothing like playing the blues to pull you out of em.

So I'm playing away and notice the Sun breaking through the clouds, wow, screw the blues I'm back baby!! Check out some sky charts to see if I can pull something in the way of conjunction out of my hat....hmmm......this looks good, Venus is coming within 10 degrees of 9 beta cap in Capricornus, what can I say, I was desperate, then I had a brain storm, looked at Heavens-Above and Satellite Tracking to see if there were any Iridium flares or per chance, the infamous Tool bag flying around the Venus Jupiter gathering, and score, the tool bag was making a flyby just overhead of Venus at 6:09 local time, got my gear together, only had a half hour before transit time.

Made it out to the site just in time, snapped a bunch of pics with a high ISO and short exposure to have the best chance of imaging a faint object. Turns out I actually saw it live and in person, just for an instant, probably between tumbles, Sunlight reflecting off it making it brighter, hence the above pic, the comet looking item in the middle of the picture. Next stop the Geminids meteor shower this weekend, peaking around 2:00 am Saturday December 13th. Look to the east, around 10:00 pm on the 12th. So far so good for mostly clear skies here. Update, Nite Sky Girl on her site had mentioned about the Moon and Pleiades getting together December 10, don't know how I missed that one, check out her awesome site. Look to the east after Sunset and through the rest of the night as they travel together, will be snowing here but I will post any images you may get, and hey, free 3D glasses.

I'll leave you now with an animation of the Moon taken Sunday November 30.