All you early birds and fans of the Moon and/or Mars be sure to be up early tomorrow (July 17) and watch the Moon graze Mars in a rare near-occultation for viewers in North America. Any of you in south Florida or the Caribbean will actually see Mars disappear behind the Moon. Occultation is at 4:14am local in Miami. Close approach is at 4:57 in New York, 3:34 in Chicago, 1:57 in Denver and 12:22 in Los Angeles. Closest approaches will be in the east.

More info in the July Sky & Telescope and at http://SkyandTelescope.com

edited to give reference.

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If you can't dazzle 'em with dexterity, baffle 'em with BS.

I can see them outside of my window right now!! Fantastick! =D> =D> =D>

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"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known." Carl Sagan

I saw it, I saw it! I wish my vision was better, because of my astigmatisms, the glare surrounding the moon nearly blocked out Mars.

Still pretty cool though!

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Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

you saw it? when i looked at the schedule it wasn't supposed to happen for another hour!

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None to speak of

drat! that means i missed it!

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In Michigan, I don't think you would see the moon occult Mars, so it's as close as it's going to get right about now. Hurry and look.

no no...i'm in TN at school. i'll run down to the lobby and look though.

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None to speak of

fog=

too bad there's no angry face!



i'll have to manage with it vicariously :P

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None to speak of

Notice that it's about a half hour earlier UTC each time zone west.

The clouds cleared, and it's about 5 arcmin from the edge of the moon now.

Wow, it is events like this that you can see that the moon really is moving. So cooool. 8)

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"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known." Carl Sagan

The folks in the graze path will see it about a half hour from now--I just got an astroalert.

still too much fog!!! i can hardly see the sidewalk 10 yards away and the moon looks like it's wearing a lampshade.

it's the only thing i can see right now, and it's fuzzy and blurry at best. it's a conspiracy i tell you! that old NASA is up to its tricks again. :wink:

btw kilopi, how do you get an astro alert. is that from msn? or a web site?

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None to speak of

Fog and clouds just rolled in here too. O well.

AstroAlert is a service of Sky and Telescope. You can sign up for as many as 11 different alerts: Comets, Extragalactic supernovae, Gamma-ray bursters, Meteors, Minor planets (asteroids), Neutrino-detected supernovae, Novae, Occultations, Planetary activity, Solar activity & auroras, and Variable stars.

cool. i'm there! all 11...

are you in the mountains or the coast? or the national forest area (ie, the western quarter of the state)?

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None to speak of

Darn it! I thought this thread was about the other kind of "occult", so I didn't read it until 2 minutes ago. I missed this great near-occultation event. #-o

I sould clarify, I didn't see the occut, I just saw the moon very close to Mars. It was neato!

And there is an angry face... :x

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Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

It was really great through my telescope, although my viewing was cut short by some serious dewing on my corrector plate. Right towards the end I had my 15mm eyepiece and a barlow in and the field of view was small enough that you could see Mars and just a slice of the Moon almost like that Apollo 8 shot of the Earth from lunar orbit. It was hard to make out any detail on the surface of Mars besides the polar cap by then because of the dew though. Curse you humidity! On the plus side, as I was breaking down the scope to take it back inside about 4am, I saw a cool halo around the moon that actually showed some color!

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If you can't dazzle 'em with dexterity, baffle 'em with BS.

The occultation would have been neat but Mars is huge and worth seeing any night in the near future that is clear where you are. The Moon didn't cover Mars up here in the North, but both are right outside my big picture window right now and they are beautiful. Last night was a good view as well.

I have to bragg that my house is on a small hillside and the living room has a big picture window that looks out just over the neighbor's roof to mostly a big sky view. It faces the Northeast so when the aurora does show itself, the window faces the right way, the Moon is often part of the scene, and, I can set my telescope up inside on cold nights.

And right now, Mars looks as bright as Venus.

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~~ ><>><> ~~ ><,,> ><,,> ...`;=;p d;=;' /\/\^/\ ^^ ^/\/\_
Democracy Now! - The lost art of investigative news reporting.

One word - Kendrick!

http://www.kendrick-ai.com/dewremover.html

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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

I had my Astrozap dew shield on but it was so humid it only held off the moisture for about an hour. There are a couple of good photos taken by a guy in Florida on the Sky &amp; Telescope website today. It looks like we won't have another Mars/Lunar occultation visible in North America until February 18, 2020.

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If you can't dazzle 'em with dexterity, baffle 'em with BS.

darn, it was cloudy when i checked, oh well, its usually cloudy up here anyways

skyglow1

I didn't write that, my evil twin didd.

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~~ ><>><> ~~ ><,,> ><,,> ...`;=;p d;=;' /\/\^/\ ^^ ^/\/\_
Democracy Now! - The lost art of investigative news reporting.

I just saw mars yesterdya night with some features! I saw a dark marking and a polar cap! One of the happiest days of my life!

skyglow1

Congratulations. Mars is positioned pretty well for you folks in the southern hemisphere isn't it? It won't get real high up north this time around.

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If you can't dazzle 'em with dexterity, baffle 'em with BS.

Ah, but it is high enough to see quite well, especially around 3am or so right now. Trust me, go out and look to the south, you won't be dissapointed (unless there are clouds).

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"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known." Carl Sagan

Oh I have, I have. My efforts to image it have been basically fruitless so far but I'm working on it. My problem with the height above the horizon is that it is often low over neighbors' rooftops and the heat shed by them adds to the "boil" when I try to observe with more magnification.

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If you can't dazzle 'em with dexterity, baffle 'em with BS.

Just look at it last night. Iy was lower than 20 degress elevation but i still managed to see heaps of stuff. The seeing here is pretty good. Mars will be nearly directly overhead in august! Now I only have to go out at about 10:30pm and I can see it well.

skyglow1

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

That is a great shot. You can see what I meant by my earlier comparison to the Apollo 8 photo, but my view wasn't nearly that good.

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If you can't dazzle 'em with dexterity, baffle 'em with BS.