Moon occults Mars on 8th December

[Weather-history]

As we know, the Moon occasionally moves in front of the Sun to produce a solar eclipse. A solar eclipse is actually an occultation.  The Moon also occults stars, asteroids and planets in its orbit around the Earth. 

On the 8th of December at about 4.56am, the Moon occults the planet Mars which lasts about an hour with Mars reemerging from behind the Moon about 5.57am

What so special about this occultation is that it occurs at the Full Moon and with Mars at opposition. Mars will have a magnitude of about -1.9, so the full moonlight won't drown out the planet 

Observe Mars this autumn as the Red Planet approaches opposition

WWW.SKYATNIGHTMAGAZINE.COM

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As Mars approaches opposition, take time to make the most of the Red Planet.

 

[Arnie Pie]

Although not visible from my balcony, a trip out to the local park is being planned for next Thursday mornings event.

I'm still not totally sure about the timing of the occultation from my location 

Around 5 - 6am from the centre of the UK is being reported.

However my normally accurate and trusted site www.timeanddate.com and its Interactive Night Sky Map are showing a  earlier time of around 2am

I`m pretty sure that their information is incorrect.

Any clarity on the timings of the occultation will be appreciated

 

[toggerob]

Moon/Mars Occultation begins 04:57 in Manchester from this chart i've got bookmarked, hopefully there'll be clear skies for the early morning.

Occultation of a Planet

WWW.LUNAR-OCCULTATIONS.COM

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International Occultation Timing Association

 

[Arnie Pie]

Cheers Snowy, some good information in there

I`ve double checked the info with Stellarium and informed the 'timeanddate' website of their error

04.58 starting time for Birmingham in the Western skies at a reasonable altitude 

for clear weather

[Arnie Pie]

On 01/12/2022 at 12:50, Arnie Pie said:

and informed the 'timeanddate' website of their error

After providing evidence from other reliable website, I have received this reply

"Edward Angelo Cerullo

09:07 (3 hours ago)

to me

Hello Terry,

We can not comment on other websites, however, we believe our Night Sky Map to be correct. 

https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/night/uk/birmingham

Have a great weekend!"

 

Oh Well

Edited December 2, 2022 by Arnie Pie

[reef]

Looking forward to this. Hopefully its actually clear this time. I missed the Jupiter / Saturn closeup last year due to cloud!

[Roger J Smith]

I am also sure the time and date info is incorrect. The attached link shows a map of the path of this occultation event. 

http://www.lunar-occultations.com/iota/planets/1208mars.htm

If you were south of this extensive zone, the full moon would appear slightly above Mars in the sky. For the few locations that are north of the zone, the full moon (at midnight transit) would appear below Mars. 

The exact time of full moon is 0408z and that means it is closest to transit around eastern North America (the Atlantic time zone basically). Now if you're west of that like myself, the full moon is rising and the times are a bit ahead of the times in eastern North America, and similarly, for the UK the times are a bit after the full moon (because both yourselves and for me, we're on the sides of the earth looking out at this rather than being right in the alignment, so due to the different angles to the sun-earth-moon alignment at 0408z, I'm looking from the right of that line directed outward from Sun to Moon, and you're looking from the left of the line. My time displacement is about half an hour according to the data on this site, Mars will start its occultation around 03z and reappear at 04z. For Birmingham this site gives the times as 0458z to 0558z. So as a result of the different sight angles, I'll be (possibly) seeing this two hours before yourselves, and one hour before somebody in Nova Scotia sees it. (in universal time ignoring time zones)

Another detail would be that observers close to the central axis of the zone shown (from west to east) will see the longest event with Mars disappearing and reappearing closest to the lunar equator. All observers will note a diagonal path since the Moon will be gaining latitude at that point in its orbit, so a tendency for disappearance to be at a higher lunar latitude than reappearance later. 

An observer in Seville, Spain would see Mars disappear and reappear closer to the moon's south pole (something like equator to near south pole due to the diagonal effect I mentioned earlier), and only for half an hour (0531z to 0604z). An observer in Svalbard north of Norway would see the opposite (Mars disappearing behind the north polar regions of the Moon to emerge closer to the equator) and for just about the same time span as Seville (0538z to 0602z). There will be locations in the southeastern US where, given good optical conditions, observers might be able to watch Mars graze the south pole of the Moon just around 9:30 p.m. CST (closer to 10:40 p.m. EST) on the 7th. The disappearance lasts only a few minutes at Austin TX, Memphis TN, Pittsburgh PA or north of New York City at Albany NY. I'm sure if skies are clear enthusiastic amateur astronomers will have the exact grazing line available and may travel short distances if necessary to witness that. (se-e PA, n/cNJ, se NY, WV, e KY, w TN, parts of s AR, se TX for example) 

The link provided shows detailed start and finish info for anyone reading this anywhere in the world (scroll down below the map). 

Other interesting factoids, the Moon is closing in on its maximum declination range, an 18.6 year cycle, and will peak in 2024-25. If the Moon had been in its 2015 position at lowest declination range, it would have sailed a long way below Mars in its current position (although the last time Mars was near this location in December would have been 2005 and 2007), as it would only reach a declination of 18 deg N (Mars is at 25 deg N). So that tells you Mars will cross the ecliptic northbound around today and will head towards its northern latitude maximum (5 deg) a few days after the Mars occultation, about when it's approaching the vicinity of Regulus (in Leo). That point of maximum latitude retrogrades along the lunar orbital path so in two more years it will lie near the Moon's position on night of Dec 8-9, where it crosses the Milky Way and achieves maximum declination (around 6h R.A.). A year or less after that, the latitude displacement max will be where this Mars occultation event takes place, and we would see the Moon above Mars from the occultation zone, so everything has aligned just right for this. 

 

Edited December 4, 2022 by Roger J Smith

[toggerob]

Both are looking good in the sky this evening. The orbital mechanics shown on Stellarium are interesting as it'll look like Mars will miss the Moon entirely up to 1am as it rises above the occulation point, however after Mars makes this sudden jump upwards it'll incline itself to the NW-facing edge of the Moon before being occluded. It's all to do with positioning, planetary motions, timing, etc, which my feeble brain can't figure out but will still be neat to see throughout the night.

[Beverley Lass]

Yes, I've just seen the two in proximity like your lovely photo
Smashing.  

[Ms Rock & Blues]

I've been looking on & off for a few days, it's looking good tonight.

[Weather-history]

Thin stratocumulus clouds came over but could still see the occultation

 

[toggerob]

Nikon D3100 with the sigma lens cranked all the way to 300mm, and a little post-processing using lightroom & HDR afterwards. It was a sight well worth setting the alarm at 4am for.

[toggerob]

..and out pops Mars on the other-side 1hr later, somewhat scuppered by overhead clouds that rolled in but still visible when using the D3100 lens.

[Weather-history]

Mars going behind moon

Re-emerging behind Moon

 

[Arnie Pie]

A frustrating but rewarding morning down the local park

Unfortunately no photos from my agoraphobic DLRS ( she`s got used to being connected to the mains and sitting on a warm window sill )

... but a still and a short video from my back-up cam

 

 

[toggerob]

A cracking view of the Occultation taken from New Hampshire on the spaceweather.com front-page, there's just something about the image that makes it unique (likely it's the 3D effect the moon's mountain shadows cast and knowing those same mountains/crater features are many miles in height.)