Tonight - lunar occultation of μ Piscium

[lajoswinkler]

Times are in CET. I'll try to watch it with binoculars.

[Tex_NL]

A what in the what-what?

Could you be a tiny bit more informative please? I, and I suspect many others, have NO idea what you're talking about.

[BagelRabbit]

A what in the what-what?

Could you be a tiny bit more informative please? I, and I suspect many others, have NO idea what you're talking about.

Basically, the Moon is passing right between us here on Earth and a rather well-known double star. The star will be temporarily blotted out by the Moon, and this "occultation" will be easily viewable with binoculars.

Personally, I'd save the excitement for the Moon occulting another planet (or even the total lunar eclipse that's coming up quite soon). But to each their own

-Upsilon

[Tex_NL]

Basically, the Moon is passing right between us here on Earth and a rather well-known double star. The star will be temporarily blotted out by the Moon, and this "occultation" will be easily viewable with binoculars.

Personally, I'd save the excitement for the Moon occulting another planet (or even the total lunar eclipse that's coming up quite soon). But to each their own

-Upsilon

Really? That's it? The moon blocks a star. Wow! Like that never happens! Thousands of stars get occluded by the moon each and every night.

But you're right, to each his own.

[RainDreamer]

Not anywhere in position to see that...

Where do you get those stats though?

[lajoswinkler]

Really? That's it? The moon blocks a star. Wow! Like that never happens! Thousands of stars get occluded by the moon each and every night.

But you're right, to each his own.

Actually, occultation of a star visible by a naked eye is not something you see every day. Compared to lunar occultation of planets, which is neat to watch with a telescope, stars (except a handful of them) have negligible angular diameters, so at the moment of occultation, they just WHOOSH! from the sky and it's a pretty fun thing to watch, especially if the star is very bright. That's also a proof that the Moon doesn't have an atmosphere.

Not anywhere in position to see that...

Where do you get those stats though?

I got them from one skygazing group on FB. Sadly, I couldn't watch it. Yeah, it was an event for people living across the Atlantic ocean.

[LordFerret]

The only thing I noticed last night, after the day's heat and humidity, was that moonrise over the ocean was huge and quite red. Quite beautiful actually.

[vger]

Actually, do you get a fancy diffraction from the star at the last second? You don't need an atmosphere to cause light to bend, though you wouldn't get color shifts like you would with a prismatic medium.

[Sharkman Briton]

Wait, whens this lunar eclipse?

[Tex_NL]

Actually, occultation of a star visible by a naked eye is not something you see every day. ...

On a clear night I can see literally thousands of stars straight out of my back yard. If I would drive out of town for only a few km thousands multiply to tens of thousands. (I live in a relatively rural area with no heavy industry of major cities for dozens of km.)

Are you really going to tell me there are absolutely NO stars blocked by the moon when I look up on a regular night?

[vger]

On a clear night I can see literally thousands of stars straight out of my back yard. If I would drive out of town for only a few km thousands multiply to tens of thousands. (I live in a relatively rural area with no heavy industry of major cities for dozens of km.)

Are you really going to tell me there are absolutely NO stars blocked by the moon when I look up on a regular night?

I think the point is that it's bright enough to get noticed to the naked eye.

Stars get near the planets all the time, but planetary conjunctions are much more easily noticeable.

Yeah, stars go behind the moon every day. But if one day it happened to something as bright as Polaris, we would all be out there to see it.

[lajoswinkler]

Actually, do you get a fancy diffraction from the star at the last second? You don't need an atmosphere to cause light to bend, though you wouldn't get color shifts like you would with a prismatic medium.

I've never heard of it happening, but it's an interesting question.

On a clear night I can see literally thousands of stars straight out of my back yard. If I would drive out of town for only a few km thousands multiply to tens of thousands. (I live in a relatively rural area with no heavy industry of major cities for dozens of km.)

Are you really going to tell me there are absolutely NO stars blocked by the moon when I look up on a regular night?

Lunar occultations of stars happen all the time, but those stars have apparent magnitudes way below our perceptible level. Mu Piscium is around 4.7^m so if you live in a town you'd want some binoculars, especially if the Moon is full, which is almost the case.

Aldebaran will get occulted this weekend, but I won't be able to see it.

[benzman]

Of more interest to pre-spacecraft astronomers was a 'grazing occultation'. This is when a star just grazes the lunar horizon. Because the moon is not a perfect sphere and has no atmosphere to cause refraction the star will be hidden by mountains and become visible through valleys and so will seem to blink a few times. Without going into too much detail, if several observers in different positions time the exact moment and duration of the blinks it allows you to plot the altitudes and contours of the lunar horizon. This was useful in pre-spacecraft days but is now really only of interest to amateur astronomers.

[tomf]

It seems that there is some debate but it looks like the upper limit of the individually visible stars in the sky is around 10,000, only half of which will be visible at once.

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-resources/how-many-stars-night-sky-09172014/

[Dartguy]

Wait, whens this lunar eclipse?

September 27th, totality begins at 10:11 pm EDT.

[MinimumSky5]

As this is an international forum, using UTC is generally a better idea, especially as that's the time standard used in in the ISS!