Daytime Lunar occultation of Venus : Thursday 9 Nov

[+Bino-viewer]

Fellow stargazers,

 

A good binocular / scope and imaging target happening Thursday (9 Nov) morning

 

A fairly thin Lunar (14% sunlit) crescent will occult Venus (phase 58%). Ok, its a daylight occultation, but with Venus a bright  -4.3 mag

it should be easily visible with binocs or a small scope.

 

Occultation start time is 09:43 hrs - and will reappear at 10:40 hrs - but be sure to set up and check a little earlier than this.

Venus will be located right at the bottom part of the waning crescent moon at the start of the occultation - 'the 7 o'clock position'  ( I think)

 

But will it be visible from our cloudy skys ??

Hopefully one of us will be able to bag it / image it 🙂🔭📷

Please share any images 👍🏼

 

 

 

 

 

[+RonC]

I saw them close together at 05.30 and got a phone photo.

[+Bino-viewer]

Well, with perfect timing, the moon popped into view 5 min after Venus disappeared, stayed in a clearish area for a good while,

then went back behind the clouds again just before it was due to reappear ! Who'd have thought that could happen ? 😬

This is UK astronomy for you.......

 

BUT........literally 3 or 4 mins after reappearing the fast moving clouds cleared again revealing a beautiful conjunction between

a thin waning crescent moon and a startlingly bright  - 4.3mag Venus showing a phase of 58% quite clearly.

This kind of made up for the disappointment of missing both parts of the main event. 

Venus looked spectacular through through my 20 year old 15x50 stabilised Canon binocs, and i watched the pairing for the next

10 mins or so before it clouded over again. Even my other half was impressed with the view !

 

So, all in all, not a bad ending, and thats the second planetary occultation by the moon in less than a year following the Mars event last December.

One to remember 😀