Planets
Dec 30, 2024

 As the year closes, Venus has moved all the way through the constellation Capricornus, with this penultimate evening of the year being its last in that constellation before entering Aquarius by tomorrow.  Saturn is moving prograde as quickly as it can, but will be overtaken by Venus on or about the 18th of January.  Venus is magnitude -4.35 this evening, while Saturn is considerably dimmer at magnitude +1.03, and they are separated now by 17°49'08" along the ecliptic, in both cases well to the south of that line.  Although I didn't mark its position because it was too close to the horizon and therefore too dim to see, the asteroid 1 Ceres is in southwestern Capricornus, almost directly below Venus down at the horizon.
 
This view was obtained from the access road leading to Chatham Manor from River Road along the banks of the Rappahannock River, looking southwest across the river to the skyline of Fredericksburg.  We can see three prominent spires, which are marked in the last image.  The tallest belongs to St. George's Episcopal Church, the steeple on the right to Fredericksburg Baptist Church, and the one at the left edge belongs to the Fredericksburg Circuit Court.
 
The sky at this hour shows us Capricornus almost tipped over as it begins to set; we can just barely see α and β Capricorni above the tree protruding over the horizon on the right side.  I haven't marked it on any of my images yet, but to the unaided eye, the trio of Saturn, Fomalhaut, and Diphda (which is in the extreme upper left corner of the pictures) has been noticeable as a slowly changing triangle for several months now.
 
  I wanted to get some pictures of various sky scenes from the middle of the city, with for example one of the church spires in the foreground with Venus or Jupiter amongst their respective host constellations, but this proved impossible owing to the brightness of the lights all over downtown.  Therefore, I retreated to a spot I've used before, which is somewhat up the hill leading toward Chatham Manor; it's dark there and affords a nice view across the river to the Fredericksburg skyline.  The lens I used for this picture is an old Vivitar 28-200 mm lens set at 28 mm.  Back in the 1980's and 1990's this lens was my favorite, only because of its huge range.  It doesn't do anything particular well but if you can only take one lens with you for a wide range of focal lengths, it's hard to beat.  Zooming in to use the lens at a more moderate focal length, for example 50 mm, allows us a view of the skyline with less distortion.