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 --- This message is from the AZ-Observing mailing list. If you wish to be removed from this list, send E-mail to: AZ-Observing-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, with the subject: unsubscribe. The list's archive is at: //www.freelists.org/archives/az-observing This is a discussion list. Please send personal inquiries directly to the message author. In other words, do not use "reply" for personal messages. Thanks.