Comet Leonard a No-Show to the Planetary Party

With waning opportunities to see or photograph the fading comet Leonard, one of my last of these was on the evening of Saturday, December 18, 2021. The comet had just transitioned into an evening "star," and was located low in the southwestern sky, bathed in the afterglow of the setting sun. This made photographic capture challenging and difficult. This soon became apparent after several shots with different settings produced virtually nothing. What remained, however, was a nice capture of the three aligned planets. Above, from top-to-bottom, Jupiter, Saturn and Venus glitter over a Christmassy residential area in Marion, Iowa. I captured this shot at 5:31 pm CST atop a large construction dirt pile located on Hampshire Circle, and received frozen fingers in the wind and 26 degree F outdoor temperatures! 3 second exposure at f/8, ISO 320, 18mm focal length.