Moon sailing through the Pleiades Star Cluster 21 Feb. 2010

Sunday 21 Feb. 2010 was a magnificent night for us.
Teams of observers in Greece observed and recorded many occultation events as the Moon sailed through the Pleiades stars.
In Thessaloniki, Northern Greece, a grazing occultation of bright star Merope (23 Tau) was visually observed by one observer.
In Keratea, near Athens, and in Psatha, near Megara, we observed an amazing grazing occultation of star SAO_76185.
This was recorded by me and Yiannis Efremidis with Watec 902H2 and Watec 120N+ respectively and GPS video time inserter.
Amazing! Also this grazing occultation was observed visually by Kyriaki Tigani with a TAL 2M 6" f/8. The sky conditions were excellent.
I have also recorded video of the occultation of Merope, both ingress and egress. It is Amazing that Occult prediction of the time of ingress was UT 19h 20min 25sec +-1sec and what I recorded was UT 19h 20min 24 sec!
Moreover I have successfully recorded occultation (ingress) of double stars SAO_76103, SAO_76175 and STF 450.
Our observing site was the home built observatory M. Keratea, by Antonis Farmakopoulos.
At Psatha, Dimitris Kapetanakis and other observers visually observed the grazing occultation of star SAO_76185. Themis Karteris recorded it on video (no GPS).
Occultation of Merope was visually observed in Corfu Island.

Enjoy!

Regards,
Vagelis Tsamis
Sparta Astronomy Association,
IOTA-ES

To give you an idea, see some pics at www.astrovox.gr/forum/viewtopic.php?p=125950#125950

My report of the graze of star SAO_76185

Preliminary reduction of the grazing observation data by Mitsuru Soma, IOTA, NAO(Jp)

Antonis photo

videos:

Vagelis,

Congratulations on such a detailed and accurate observation record. It is wonderful to see such worthwhile work being carried out by our Greek friends.

Best wishes (and say hi to Kiriakee for me)

Dave.

Indeed, nicely done Vagelis!

-- Jeff.

Nice work Vagelis, I like the dramatic music to the second video!

Seanie.

Very nice work!
Very interesting.

I had to smile when I watched the 2nd last video - the wide angle time lapse video.
You had hovely clear skies for 2 hours with no interruptions by cloud - difficult to plan for that here!

Michael.

Very nice time lapse imaging there Vagelis !!