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 -- -- See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please send personal replies to the author, not the list.