Pre-dawn Perfect-Pictured Planets

The planets Saturn (center, upper) and Jupiter (center, right) shone brightly in the southern sky and were framed nicely inside tree limbs during the pre-dawn hours of Wednesday, June 24, 2020. Saturn's apparent magnitude was 0.26, Jupiter's was -2.69. If you look closely at Jupiter you will see what appears to be a small appendage at its 10 o'clock position. This was caused by its moons Io and Europa, who at this time were very close to each other in their orbits around Jupiter. Speaking of close, Saturn and Jupiter were only about 1 degree apart in the sky. The planets were located in the constellation Sagittarius. This image was captured from Brentwood Drive NE in Cedar Rapids, Iowa at 3:50 am CDT and is a 10 second exposure at f/5, ISO 400, 45mm focal length. Air temperature at this time was a cool 57 degrees F.

3:56 am. 15 second exposure at f/5.6, ISO 320, 55mm focal length. Nikon D7200 DSLR camera.