Venus Occultation

[Graeme1858]

As mentioned in Mark's Moon and Venus thread yesterday, there was an occultation of Venus by the Moon this morning visible from Europe. As the Moon is in a thin crescent 26 day old phase Venus would disappear on the lit side and re-appear from the unlit side.

I checked out the occultation times in Stellerium, 09:45 to 10:45. So in the morning I checked the sky a few times and was disappointed to see cloud cover. Then at about 10:15 The Sun started shining in the garden. Game on! Eurus had smiled on me and blown the clouds away from the East! I had missed the beginning of the occultation but it looked like I was going to get a look at the re-appearance. I put my chair just outside the back door so as to use the house to protect against an inadvertent glimpse of the Sun and got my 11 x 70s out.

The thin crescent looked flat in the day time sky. The outside edge of the Crescent was about 4/5th of half of the circumference if that makes sense! And the unlit portion was almost indistinguishable from the blue background sky. I sat and looked admiring the view and tried to picture where the planet would re-appear from my Stellerium research this morning. I couldn't believe how much crap there is in my eyes, highlighted by the bright daytime binocular view!

I was beginning to wish that I had left it a few minutes later to start looking as my poor old arms and neck started to ache under the strain! But I certainly didn't want to miss the event so I carried on with only a couple of quick few seconds rests. A few light clouds drifted across and I lost sight of the Moon one time but soon found it again. Then after they cleared, as I looked, Venus blinked into view like a supernova going off! Brilliant! Then over the next minute it brightened until it became a pin prick naked eye visible point of light. I watched for a while.

An excellent event to behold. Did anyone else see it?

Graeme

[KathyNS]

Great report, Graeme!

We didn't get an occultation here, but it was a very close conjunction. I happened to wake up at 5:30 am and happened to glance out the blinds where I saw the Moon and Venus. There was about half a Moon diameter between them. By the time I got up at 7:00 and had a proper look, the gap had opened up to about two Moon diameters.

[Graeme1858]

Thanks Kathy.

Glad you enjoyed your peep through the blinds conjunction!

Graeme

[helicon]

Pretty nice Graeme and I'm glad that you were able to keep your arms mostly steady!!! Unique report and VROD worthy!

[Graeme1858]

Thanks for the VROD Michael.

Think I'll make one of those parallelogram binocular holders!

Graeme

[bobharmony]

Thanks for the report, Graeme. I'm glad you were able to catch the event.

No views here except for the bottom of a solid overcast - sigh!

Bob

[Juno16]

Very nice report Graeme!

Glad that you got to view the wonderful sight!

[Gfamily]

This was my view just as the clouds (unexpectedly) cleared before the event.

I managed to get a video of the occultation itself, but it's too big to post here, but it can be found on the StargazersLounge forum
https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/4148 ... nt=4430047

[Graeme1858]

This was my view just as the clouds (unexpectedly) cleared before the event.

Great shot. I missed that bit but it cleared for the second performance, thankfully.

Graeme

[Bigzmey]

Excellent! Occultations of planets or bright stars are fun events. I saw occultation of Mars by Moon at the beginning of this year.

[John Baars]

Lovely observation and report!
Everything was shielded by clouds over here!
Congratulations on the VROD!

[Lady Fraktor]

I was at work but it was clouded over anyways.
Nice report Graeme

[kt4hx]

Outstanding report Graeme. Glad you got a chance, despite clouds and shaky arms to witness its reappearance! Like Kathy I got to see a window blind conjunction here in the pre-dawn hours. A well deserved VROD my friend.