Mars Occulted By Moon

[bigmasterdrago]

Check out from your location (especially Phil) on December 7th (early evening), the position of Mars and the Moon. It's going to be a miss for me but farther north and east!!

[PMSchu]

Thanks, BMD! A day that will live in infamy. 

I haven't calculated the lunar occultations that far in advance yet. I'll check it out.

Phil S.

[theskyhound]

It happens again on January 30!

[PMSchu]

The event on December 7 is visible from Columbus in the evening. I didn't run the calculation beyond Jan 29. Figures there'd be one the next day. There are 4 occultations of Uranus, all in daylight, too. Unobservable. Same for one of Venus at New Moon on Oct 24.

Phil S.

[bigmasterdrago]

Thanks Greg. That's a better experience for SE Texas. Starts around 23:15CST on the dark limb of the Moon. Altitude ~50° in the west. Reappearance on the bright limb ~00:14CST on the 31st. Altitude 37°.

[bigmasterdrago]

Someone mentioned how these are not rare but the one on December 7 is when Mars is almost precisely at opposition. So somehow rare. A list was made showing the next 100 years of occultation of Mars by the Moon from my location. The phase is always high but not necessarily the elongation from the Sun, therefore not visible.


  Occultations of Mars by Moon 100 years.txt (Size: 5.66 KB / Downloads: 2)

[bigmasterdrago]

Not all of the events are occultations from my location, as the software uses a geocentric position and not a topocentric one.

[theskyhound]

Not all of the events are occultations from my location, as the software uses a geocentric position and not a topocentric one.

There is no need for generalized results from other software.

SkyTools does all of its calculations based on the location selected. You could use the Events finder to make a similar listing via the 2 Bodies tab, with Mars and the Moon selected.

[PMSchu]

Hi Greg,

That's a cool feature. Is the Event Finder's 'Visible Events Only' Radio button working? As I recall from beta testing it didn't matter whether it was set or not, I got the same results. Perhaps the events were all visible, but I don't think that was the case. It's been a while & isn't a huge deal.

It would be handy if there was a way to save some of these results, like occultations of Mars, so they could be recalled later instead of needing to be recalculated. Consider this a suggestion for a future feature.

Phil S.

[theskyhound]

Hi Phil,

Its working as far as I know, but I don't really use it myself for some reason. Every time you run it, the new results are appended. The results are saved until you clear them.