Monday, February 18, 2013

Jupiter in hiding.....


This wasn't the post I had prepared for today, but when P called me outside last night at (roughly) 8pm I knew that I'd have to record and show you this rather peculiar happening around the moon, I've never seen anything like it before. Knowing that Bill's latest acquisition is a 150 - 500 lens (Sigma) I thought he would probably get a clearer picture than I. He did. He climbed up onto his roof, tripod in hand and captured these two fantastic images, the second shot an hour after the first, merci beaucoup Bill, and P for spotting it. So here's the thing, I'd be hard pressed to explain an 'occultation' under normal circumstances, but with 'le grande mal de tĂȘte', impossible! So I shall let The Perth Observatory do it for me (below). Hope your week has started well, catch up tomorrow..Happy Tuesday, take care....

An event that you can more easily observe is the occultation (hiding) of Jupiter by the moon on Monday evening. At nightfall on Monday the first quarter moon will pass between Earth and Jupiter. Jupiter's disappearance at the dark right-hand edge of the moon is quite dramatic. As the moon moves along in its orbit, Jupiter will reappear at the bright left-hand edge: the moon traverses its own width in about an hour. This occultation will be visible across southern Australia.

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