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Cold Moon of December by Jupiter
Full Moon & Jupiter (Dec 14, 2024).jpg
This is the Full Moon of December 14, 2024 (often dubbed the Cold Moon), near the planet Jupiter at lower right. Both were rising into the eastern sky in the early evening. This was taken at 4:45 pm MST, about 20 minutes after sunset, with the sky still deep blue. Some light cloud added the glow around the Moon. Jupiter shows as a disk but only one of its moons shows up, barely, as a pale dot.
The Moon and Jupiter were 6° apart this night, so not a close conjunction by any means.
The Full Moon rose this night well before sunset due to the Moon's high declination well north of the ecliptic. In 2024 and 2025 the Moon was at its major standstill position in its 18-year cycle, with its orbital path swinging at its maximum of 5° above the ecliptic in Taurus (in December) and 5° below the ecliptic in Sagittarius (in summer). This also created the wide separation between the Moon and Jupiter, which lies much closer to the ecliptic.
Technical:
This is a blend of two exposures: 1/160 second for the Moon, to prevent the disk from overexposing, and 1/20 second for the sky and to make Jupiter stand out better and brighter. Shots taken earlier when a single exposure was able to capture both the Moon and sky showed Jupiter as too dim a dot to be obvious.
Taken with the Canon R5 at ISO 100 on the Askar SQA55 astrographic refractor, stopped down to f/6 from its maximum aperture of f/4.8. On an alt-azimuth mount with no tracking.
The Moon and Jupiter were 6° apart this night, so not a close conjunction by any means.
The Full Moon rose this night well before sunset due to the Moon's high declination well north of the ecliptic. In 2024 and 2025 the Moon was at its major standstill position in its 18-year cycle, with its orbital path swinging at its maximum of 5° above the ecliptic in Taurus (in December) and 5° below the ecliptic in Sagittarius (in summer). This also created the wide separation between the Moon and Jupiter, which lies much closer to the ecliptic.
Technical:
This is a blend of two exposures: 1/160 second for the Moon, to prevent the disk from overexposing, and 1/20 second for the sky and to make Jupiter stand out better and brighter. Shots taken earlier when a single exposure was able to capture both the Moon and sky showed Jupiter as too dim a dot to be obvious.
Taken with the Canon R5 at ISO 100 on the Askar SQA55 astrographic refractor, stopped down to f/6 from its maximum aperture of f/4.8. On an alt-azimuth mount with no tracking.
- Copyright
- © Alan Dyer/AmazingSky.com
- Image Size
- 8180x5460 / 9.4MB
- www.amazingsky.com

