FreeLists / az-observing / [AZ-Observing] Lunar occultation of Venus

["Workman, Brian (AZ76)" <brian.workman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I took a long lunch and viewed the Lunar occultation of Venus from my
backyard today. 

Last night I set my 6" Celestron newt out in the backyard. I polar aligned
it, and using Arcturus as a guide, pointed it in the right direction.
Arcturus' position at 8PM last night was pretty close to the moons position
at 10:30 this morning. 

I shouldn't have needed to do all that work, because Sky and Tel said to
simply look for the moon naked eye "four fists West of the Sun". I was glad
I did though because when I got home and went to the 'scope, I couldn't find
the Moon at all through the variable clouds and haze. I was able to find it
through the finder though and my pointing wasn't too far off. 

The Eastern limb of the old crescent moon (13%phase), and the gibbous (67%
phase) Venus were a very pretty sight. I found that using a number 15 yellow
filter helped increase the contrast of the moons limb. The view came and
went as the clouds moved across and I was afraid I'd get blocked out before
first contact, but just as the occultation started the clouds thinned enough
to give me a GREAT view. 

I estimate that if Venus were full phased first contact would have been at
10:33:38. First contact with the illuminated portion of Venus occured at
10:34:07, and second contact (complete disappearance of Venus) occurred at
10:34:34.

I then had a leisurely hour and a half to eat lunch and wait for the
reappearance. I advanced my right ascension knob about an hour and a half
and went inside.

After lunch the moon appeared in a clear blue patch of sky and I had a good
view of the reappearance. First noticeable contact with the illuminated
portion of Venus occurred at 12:02:37. Final contact was at 12:02:56. Then I
packed up and raced back to work.

The times agreed pretty well with the S&T and IOTA predictions. It's somehow
reassuring to see that the universe functions like clockwork. It was fun.

Brian


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