Large view
Venus and Saturn made their closest apparent approach to each other (conjunction) on June 30, when we were under cloud cover. The two planets were then only 7/10 of a degree apart. Tonight, when they were 8/10 of a degree apart, we still had a bit of haze and at first I was able to see a fuzzy Venus but no Saturn. I planted myself on the driveway with my camera and tripod, set my manual controls to my widest available aperture (f/4) and longest exposure (4 seconds), set my timed shutter release, and let 'er rip around 9 PM EST.
Voila!
I've included some nearby foliage to give an idea of scale. To give an idea of celestial scale, the full Moon measures a half-degree across, or 3/10 of a degree less than the apparent distance between these two travelers. We could tuck it just inside the gap between them.
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