Am I reading this right -- moon occults Saturn morning of 10 December. tomorrow?

I was checking my StarryNight in preparation for trying to catch the
Jupiter-Mars-Mercury sight the morning of 10 December and noticed it looks
as though the Moon will occult Saturn beginning around 0500 and continuing
until around 1000 (Eastern). Right??

Thanks.

On Sat, 9 Dec 2006 15:18:46 -0500, "Joe S." wrote:

I was checking my StarryNight in preparation for trying to catch the
Jupiter-Mars-Mercury sight the morning of 10 December and noticed it looks
as though the Moon will occult Saturn beginning around 0500 and continuing
until around 1000 (Eastern). Right??

Depends on your location. There is an occultation for observers in much
of Europe; I don't think it's visible anywhere in North America,
however.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

"Chris L Peterson" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 9 Dec 2006 15:18:46 -0500, "Joe S." wrote:

I was checking my StarryNight in preparation for trying to catch the
Jupiter-Mars-Mercury sight the morning of 10 December and noticed it looks
as though the Moon will occult Saturn beginning around 0500 and continuing
until around 1000 (Eastern). Right??

Depends on your location. There is an occultation for observers in much
of Europe; I don't think it's visible anywhere in North America,
however.




Hmmmm. Strange indeed. I just went back to Starry Night, made certain I
had my correct location -- Central East Tennessee, 35d 58m N 083d 55m W --
then I ran the time forward to 10 December 0500, 0600, 0700 . . . 1000 and
Starry Night shows the Moon moving in front of Saturn, visible from here.

Oh, well, I don't understand most of this stuff. I'll be up around 0430
anyway for my morning run so I'll pre-position the scope and leave the
eyepiece case and binos out overnight to cool down and see what happens.





_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

"Chris L Peterson" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 9 Dec 2006 15:18:46 -0500, "Joe S." wrote:

I was checking my StarryNight in preparation for trying to catch the
Jupiter-Mars-Mercury sight the morning of 10 December and noticed it looks
as though the Moon will occult Saturn beginning around 0500 and continuing
until around 1000 (Eastern). Right??

Depends on your location. There is an occultation for observers in much
of Europe; I don't think it's visible anywhere in North America,
however.


Looks as though my Starry Night was a tad off. I got up at 0430 and checked
the Moon and Saturn. At 0450 they were very close. I can't estimate
angular distances but when I held my hand at arm's length and pointed my
index finger at the space between Saturn and the Moon, the distance was less
than half the width of my finger. As I ran my morning run, I slowed now and
then and checked -- the two remained very close together and are still, but
it certainly does not appear that any occultation will take place. While
occultation would have been interesting to watch, this close passage was a
good sight also.

In thinking about why Starry Night showed occultation -- SN shows the Moon
as a large object -- it may be the software shows the Moon on screen larger
than it is in the sky, thus, on the computer screen it would appear to
occult Saturn.


_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

"Joe S." wrote:

Looks as though my Starry Night was a tad off. I got up at 0430 and checked
the Moon and Saturn. At 0450 they were very close. I can't estimate
angular distances but when I held my hand at arm's length and pointed my
index finger at the space between Saturn and the Moon, the distance was less
than half the width of my finger. As I ran my morning run, I slowed now and
then and checked -- the two remained very close together and are still, but
it certainly does not appear that any occultation will take place. While
occultation would have been interesting to watch, this close passage was a
good sight also.

According to my calculations - I used Memphis as a viewing site - the
angular separation was about 1 degree and 6 minutes.

Eugene L Griessel

Yield to temptation--it may not pass your way again.

Joe S. wrote:
I was checking my StarryNight in preparation for trying to catch the
Jupiter-Mars-Mercury sight the morning of 10 December and noticed it looks
as though the Moon will occult Saturn beginning around 0500 and continuing
until around 1000 (Eastern). Right??

Didn't see an occultation, but the near approach was pretty.

--
Glenn Holliday

"Joe S." wrote in message
...

"Chris L Peterson" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 9 Dec 2006 15:18:46 -0500, "Joe S." wrote:

I was checking my StarryNight in preparation for trying to catch the
Jupiter-Mars-Mercury sight the morning of 10 December and noticed it
looks
as though the Moon will occult Saturn beginning around 0500 and
continuing
until around 1000 (Eastern). Right??

Depends on your location. There is an occultation for observers in much
of Europe; I don't think it's visible anywhere in North America,
however.


Looks as though my Starry Night was a tad off. I got up at 0430 and
checked the Moon and Saturn. At 0450 they were very close. I can't
estimate angular distances but when I held my hand at arm's length and
pointed my index finger at the space between Saturn and the Moon, the
distance was less than half the width of my finger. As I ran my morning
run, I slowed now and then and checked -- the two remained very close
together and are still, but it certainly does not appear that any
occultation will take place. While occultation would have been
interesting to watch, this close passage was a good sight also.

In thinking about why Starry Night showed occultation -- SN shows the Moon
as a large object -- it may be the software shows the Moon on screen
larger than it is in the sky, thus, on the computer screen it would appear
to occult Saturn.


_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com



Here are two simple photos -- bottom-of-the-line digital camera held up to
the eyepiece just before sunrise.
http://www.schlatter.org/Dad/Astrono...and_saturn.htm

By the way -- I also observed the conjunction of Jupiter, Mercury, and Mars.
Caught the trio for about five minutes. We had clear skies here in
Knoxville, TN -- except for the eastern sky. The three planets popped out
of the clouds -- Jupiter was a big, round, bright spot; Mercury was a round
spot; Mars was tiny point of light.

All this was viewed with an XT-12 12-inch Dob and a 35mm Meade Plossl at
43X.

In article , "Joe S."
wrote:

In thinking about why Starry Night showed occultation -- SN shows the Moon
as a large object -- it may be the software shows the Moon on screen larger
than it is in the sky, thus, on the computer screen it would appear to
occult Saturn.

You either were zoomed out too far or you had the Moon enlarged. There
is a setting for enlarging the Moon to make appear larger when zoomed
out. In SN Pro 6 you can right-click on the Moon and deselect "Enlarge
Moon Size"

--
Brian Hughes
temp0806 at hughesvideo dot com