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The Moon will occult Saturn in the early hours of August 21 but it won’t be very easy to observe.[1] It takes place with the 97% illuminated Moon low down in the SW. Disappearance is around 03:30 UT; reappearance around 04:10 UT. (Figure 1). Times for various cities in the UK and Ireland are given in Table 1. Saturn (mag 0.7) will take about 45 seconds to be occulted.
At a similar time on August 26, the Moon will pass across the Pleiades and there will be a grazing occultation of Atlas, 27 Tau, a mag 3.6 double star (mags 3.8 and 5.5) [1,2]. Observers along a line between Rosslare, Anglesey and Middlesbrough could see a series of disappearances and reappearances as the star ducks and dives in between the jagged features of the Moon’s limb. The multiple nature of Atlas means that brief fades and steps in brightness are also expected. Observers south of this line will see a standard occultation; to its north only a near miss of star and Moon will occur. A planetary webcam or video camera with a frame rate of about 25 fps can be used to record the occultation.
More details about the graze track and timings can be obtained from Tim Haymes – occultations AT stargazer.me.uk – and please report any observations to him.
The BAA Handbook [2] lists the circumstances of bright star occultations computed for Greenwich and Edinburgh, with coefficients to compute the event time from an observer’s location. More accurate predictions can be obtained using Occult software.[3][1] Lunar Section Circular, 2024 August, pp. 2-4
[2] 2024 BAA Handbook, Lunar Occultations, pp. 37-45
[3] Occult software https://occultations.org/observing/software/occult/(As I was about to send this note there’s now an Observer’s Challenge on the website)
https://britastro.org/2024/observers-challenge-a-lunar-occultation-of-saturn-on-2024-august-21
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Thanks for the update Alex, i am looking forward to the Saturn occultation. Best of luck to all.
Please send reports to me: tvh dot observatory AT btinternet com, or the lunar Section Director.The email address occultations AT stargazer.me.uk no longer exists.
For the Atlas Graze, here is a link to zip file with the limb profile, text file, and the Google Earth mean limb. (computed with Occult4 )
For best view, observer from anywhere between 1 and 9km inside the mean limb. If you are on the mean limb line – there is no occultation !
The limb is very rugged and lots of ins-and-outs should be seen.I hope the shared link works 😉
https://1drv.ms/u/c/cf6c8ab7497dcb5c/ESOWhoVGqIBCvPvRpGBkyGYBfU7o5W5AZiVgRGSAYo98jQ?e=zE6Xqk
Tim Haymes
Lunar Section Occultation Coordinator.Hi Tim,
Thanks for correcting the e-mail address, I quoted the one in the 2024 Handbook. The shared link works fine.
Alex.
I wish you all a good and beautiful observation.
I planned to observe the event by taking the telescope to an altitude of 2500m on Mount Aquila in the Gran Sasso d’Italia. Unfortunately, the weather forecast is not favourable. Here in the valley (L’Aquila city) it has been thunderstorms and hail for a few days, and on the high peaks even worse. I will stay on the terrace at home, God send me good luck.Pictured is the panorama from the summit of Monte Aquila. Below, the two domes of the Abruzzo astronomical observatory (at an altitude of 2120 m)
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Please excuse me, I confused with another image. The observatory is left out does not appear, at the bottom of the picture is the historic Campo Imperatore hotel.
It went badly, no observation. Overcast sky throughout the night. The clouds begin to thin out an hour before the initial phase. The moon always remains covered by a small cloud. On the way out, the sky was already blue but a persistent small cloud also prohibited visual observation. The picture shows the best situation.
The sky mocked me.
I hope it went well for you.Attachments:
It was intermittantly cloudy with a moderate breeze during ingress, and a dense patch of cloud over the Moon during the emergence phase where it would have been possible to get a nice image and an exact timing. Typical. [Image showing cloud at the predicted time of emergence]. But still absolutely fascinating to watch.
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Thin cloud prevented a good view of both the D and R. So no observation to report from North Oxfordshire
Clouds rolled in here near Selsey about two hours before the start.
I managed these video clips through cloud gaps and haze:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyXdQHlNfK8
Cheers
IanI would say that despite the bad weather the footage is well done. The clip illustrates the event reasonably well. The focus is well placed. Attached is a previous Saturn occultation and an image taken with Registax5 from the related clip taken with a Tou cam Pro webcam at the focus of a MAK90+Barlow3x.
We hope to have good skies for the partial lunar eclipse, which will be on 18 September. I am very interested in lunar eclipses, I have been observing for over 15 years. If someone could make an observation we would agree on the procedure.Thank you and greetings to all.
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