Jupiter?

Hoping to see the alignment of Jupiter and Saturn in the early night sky, Jeanine and I drove to a nearby field with an expansive view of the horizon. Already parked there were a dozen cars of similarly intentioned individuals. I immediately set up my tripod and mounted my camera and 600mm telephoto lens. I looked to the southwest by west direction and spotted a bright light in the sky. When I looked in the viewfinder, I could not believe how beautiful the image was. It kept changing colors as the clouds moved by. I was very excited that the predicted cloud cover was not obscuring the view. As I continued to take photos, I noticed that the object seemed to be moving. What’s more, the view through my lens did not match what I was seeing with my eyes. Long story short; I had aimed my camera at an approaching plane and my lens was not focused at the correct distance leading to exaggerated size and color effects. Below is a similarly defocused picture of our Christmas “tree” featured in a recent post.