[AZ-Observing] Re: Mars and the Moon

Thanks for the information, Mike. Looks like I was only 8 minutes late in 
catching the smallest angle of separation from my location. And thanks for 
pointing out the errors in the caption --- I brain-farted (can you say that 
here?) the decimal points. Heck, the full Moon is bright enough as is and I 
certainly wouldn't want to deal with anything larger!

Sam

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Collins" <cal_donley@xxxxxxx>
To: <az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, December 24, 2007 12:03 PM
Subject: [AZ-Observing] Re: Mars and the Moon


> sam@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>> Here's a shot of the pair taken at 0140 UT 24Dec2007. It looked to me 
>> like
>> the pair began drifting farther apart as the evening progressed.
>>
>> http://www.pbase.com/pegsam/image/90740427
>
>   XEphem says that closest approach was at 01:32 UT (18:32 MST).  I've
> generated a plot showing separation over time, from noon until midnight
> local time yesterday.
>
> <http://members.cox.net/f7j9jwirjsljejic/separation.jpg>
>
>   Local time is plotted on the X axis, and separation in degrees on the
> Y axis.  I found the difference in slope before and after minimum
> separation to be interesting, although I've not yet deduced the reason
> for the difference.
>
>   One other point, Sam.  In the caption to your image, you say that the
> Moon is "approximately 5 degrees in diameter".  It's actually only about
> 0.5 degrees, and at the time your image was made, the separation was
> well under 1 degree.  An occultation was visible to observers in the far
> north.
>
> -- Mike --

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