A Celestial Event

The Great Conjunction is what the media called this extraordinary celestial event. The planets Jupiter and Saturn were aligned in the night sky and took place on December 21, 2020, the Winter Solstice. The last time this celestial event took place was eight hundred years ago.

We had heard about this information on the news, on Facebook, and on other social media platforms. I wanted to be able to view these planets in the sky, but did not have the right equipment to view them.

I decided to go online and do some research. I knew we needed a telescope, but it needed to be a special telescope. We needed to be able to take pictures with this telescope. I found a Celestron telescope that I could use my smartphone with to take pictures. It was a little expensive, but well worth the price for something that would only happen every eight hundred years. I ordered the telescope and even paid express shipping so that it would get to my house in time. My son and I were so excited and could not wait for our telescope to arrive in time to see these planets in fine detail.

Finally, UPS delivered our package two days before December 21st. We unpacked it and read the directions on how to put it together. My son and I worked as a team trying to put all the parts together. We really enjoyed this family time working on this project. The telescope was ready and all it needed was to be evaluated.

I read the directions very carefully and then took it outside that evening to experiment with how to use it to locate objects in the night sky. I started with an easy planet, Venus. I used the coordinates and then slightly moved the lens toward the location. It did take a little bit of time and patience to locate the planet, but when I did I was able to see many details that I had not seen before. I was noticeably confident that I had made the right decision by purchasing this telescope. After I located the planet Venus, I decided to just play around a little to see what else I could locate in the sky. I looked in the directions for other popular objects that could be seen during the winter solstice. I found the coordinates and used the telescope to try and find them. The telescope lens is overly sensitive, and it cannot be moved quickly. It must be moved very slowly and with exact precision which requires a lot of skill and patience. I will admit that at times I did feel myself getting quite frustrated because I would move it too far or not far enough. I felt like a surgeon in an extremely serious surgery that could have been life or death.

On December 21st, my son and I went outside, and I was overly confident that we could find Jupiter and Saturn in the night sky. We used the coordinates and the lens to locate these two celestial objects. I was a bit nervous, but excited at the same time. We kept looking without giving up until we saw a couple of the other planets in our solar system. I knew we were so close that we could almost touch the planets. We just needed to hold our mouths a certain way and be extremely patient and we would find it. Then I saw a huge giant orange planet! We did it! I had to turn the lens and refocus it until we could see the delicate details of the planet. Once I did, I was able to see Jupiter and then I could also see the planet Saturn. I was able to see the rings around Saturn as well. I let my son look through the lens so that he could see the wonder in the night sky that I had just seen with my own eyes. This was the first time we had both seen such a heavenly celestial event with our own eyes. It was amazing! I took a picture of it with my smartphone so we could have this moment with us forever and we could share this moment with others.

I mean how many times in a person’s life do they get to witness an extraordinary heavenly event in the night sky?