Last night, photographers and stargazers around the world were treated to the Great Conjunction, an event where Jupiter and Saturn appeared in the sky closer to each other than hundreds of years ago. Undoubtedly, numerous photos have been taken of the rare sight, but photographer Jason De Freitas took a particularly happy photo a few days ago showing the ISS between the two planets.
While Jupiter and Saturn appear close to each other in the sky once every 20 years or so, the last time they were this close as during The Great Conjunction was back on March 4, 1226, or 794 years ago.
While planning to photograph the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, De Freitas realized he could include the ISS in the image as well.
“I was incredibly lucky to find out that I could see the path of the International Space Station traveling through the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction,” says De Freitas.
After much planning, De Freitas drove an hour on December 17 – “quite a short distance in the setup,” he says – to a location where everything would be perfectly aligned for his recording.
At around 9:54 PM from Jellore Lookout in New South Wales, Australia, De Freitas aimed his Pentax 67 and Takumar 600mm f / 4 at the planets and captured an exposure time of 10 seconds on Fujifilm Provia 100f film. Tracking was done with a Skywatcher NEQ6 equatorial mount.
The photo above is what resulted. Here’s a closer look that shows you the planets and moons of Jupiter more clearly:
The Freitas also used a Nikon D750 and Tamron 70-200mm f / 2.8 to record digital video of the event:
“Probably the most unique photo I’ve ever taken,” says De Freitas. “[S]omehow everything on the night worked. More than excited about this one.
“The timing of this was down to the second and I still can’t believe I got it done.”
Earlier this year, De Freitas shared an inside look at how he makes astrophotography on medium format film (and the occasional 35mm film). You can also find more of De Freitas’ work on his website and Instagram.