An Occultation of Mars

Dear Friends,

I am delighted to present you with the occultation of Mars by the two-day old crescent moon which transpired 2.5 hours ago. Stable skies but quite heavy winds added to the challenge of locating the very thin crescent moon and Mars an hour before the occultation and during daylight so that a time series could be initiated. Nevertheless, with some persistence, these two celestial bodies were eventually located and a wonderful show started to unfold as Mars and the Moon approached one another most gracefully.

The disappearance of Mars behind the Moon's dark eastern limb occurred at 21:25:22 local time with the setting moon only 7.3 degrees above the horizon and which, regrettably, did not permit for the observation and photography of the red planet's reappearance 48 minutes thereafter when the moon was already two degrees below the horizon.

Mars is now a miniscule 3.7" (apparent diameter) and, thankfully, this is something which did not adversely impact the recording of this dramatic event. The moon was slightly over two days old and with a phase of 6.2% which proved to be a godsend since a relatively longer exposure was required and which simultaneously helped in the suitable capture of Mars.

The digital mosaic includes a time series of the celestial dance between Mars and Luna with exposures spaced 5 minutes apart with the ingress step used to complete the series. To this end, I kindly direct you to www.perseus.gr/Astro-Lunar-Occult-2006-07-27D.htm .

Bst wishes from Greece!

Anthony.

Super!

Anthony,

Stunning capture, a pity you didn't manage the reappearance on the new limb. I watched this on my Pocket Stars this evening, hoping to see it in realtime, but as you say the crescent moon was so low in the sky I didn't even manage to catch that due to my site's sight being limited by neighbouring houses. Nice to see someone else was on the look out and had a success. With the moon again waxing I hope to get another mosaic put together tomorrow night - here's hoping for clear skies.

Nice capture Anthony, totally clouded out here

Stunning Anthony, really nice work. When you say that it is a mosaic, is the exposure of the Moon 1 shot, then 4 seperate shots of Mars added to it? And if not, does that mean there are 4 'stacked' shots of the Moon in this one?

Seanie.

Thanks for the kind words everyone.

John, I am sorry to hear that your conditions were not favourable. I now have Venus and Mars conjunctions (with the moon) out of the way and would like to nail Jupiter and Saturn at some point.

Seanie, I owe you an apology. Perhaps a better word would have been a composite since I aligned on the moon itself and then used different portions of different exposures to produce the master photo (vis a vis the sequence involving Mars).

Next month will be "Mars hoax" time again and I trust this photo of mine will lay to rest the assertion that Mars will approach so close to earth that it will be as large as the moon. The current apparent diameter for Mars is 3.77" and it will have to grow double-exponentially over the next few weeks to reach the apparent size of the moon. :lol:

Anthony.