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Moon and Saturn

On the night of 9 - 10 December 2006, the Moon and the planet Saturn accompanied each other across the sky.  Most of the night these two objects were close together, at times less than 1 degree apart.  On the evening of 9 December 2006, the Moon rose at 2205 EST and Saturn rose at 2226.   The two reached zenith (directly overhead) on the morning of 10 December at 0509 (Moon) and 0511 (Saturn).

I observed them through my telescope around 0450 EST then again between 0630 and 0730.  These two photos were taken at 0705 -- the sky was bright because the sun was coming up -- sunrise was at 0736.  The moon was at azimuth 235 degrees, altitude 58 degrees. 

These photos were taken with simple equipment and a simply setup -- Orion XT-12 telescope, a Meade 35mm Plossl eyepiece (which yields a magnification of 43X), and a Kodak EasyShare C300 camera held up to the eyepiece, took one exposure for each shot.

Saturn with its rings is visible in the upper left corner while the Moon dominates the bottom half of the photo.  These photos were taken through a reflecting telescope, thus, the image is reversed from reality -- as seen from Earth, Saturn was beneath the Moon -- the scope's mirror reverses that position.

Another photo -- neither Saturn nor the Moon is as clear as in the top photo.  Note that this photo is lighter than the one above.  In the top photo, the camera was held close to the eyepiece and the rubber eye guard around the eyepiece blocked sunlight.  In the lower photo, the camera was not up against the rubber eye guard and sunlight entered the camera.