Moon occults Saturn on 2025 January 4

[Alex Pratt]

Observers in the UK and Ireland are well placed to see the Moon occult Saturn on Saturday evening (Jan 4). A world map is attached, showing the region of visibility of the event, along with the times of disappearance and reappearance at selected sites in the UK, Ireland and other countries, and Moon maps marked for some locations in the UK and Ireland.

Note that these are mid-times for Saturn’s disc and it will take over 30 seconds for the Moon to occult the planet and about one minute for its rings. The disappearance at the dark limb (DD) is much easier to observe than the reappearance at the bright limb (RB).

Saturn’s largest moon Titan (mag 8.7) will also be occulted. Details are given of its DD which will have a duration of 1.6 seconds.

(The 2025 BAA Handbook pp. 37 explains how to use the a and b coefficients to compute the event time from another location.)

All data and graphics from Occult.
https://occultations.org/observing/software/occult/

Attachments:

1. 

   Saturn-world-map.png
   

2. 

   Saturn-Moon-map-UKIE.png
   

3. 

   Titan-disappearance-Moon-map-UKIE.png
   

1. Saturn-times-UKIE.txt
2. Saturn-times-World.txt
3. Titan-times-UKIE.txt
4. Titan-times-World.txt

[Lars Lindhard]

The clouds made a nice hole just before the event, so here are Saturn and the Moon seen from Denmark just before…

• This reply was modified 5 hours, 10 minutes ago by Lars Lindhard.
• This reply was modified 5 hours, 9 minutes ago by Lars Lindhard.

Attachments:

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   IMG_3774-scaled.jpeg
   

[Alex Pratt]

Congratulations, Lars!

[Author]

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