Moon Occults Mars - 2020 FEB 18

[CentaurZ]

The waning crescent Moon will occult (cover) Mars during the morning of Tuesday 2020 FEB 18 for observers in North America.

The upcoming immersion will occur on the lunar bright limb, with emersion on the dark limb. Any observers on the graze path in Mexico can witness an interrupted Mars appearing to pass through lunar hills and valleys. Those north of the only graze path will see a full occultation.

Photos and descriptions of the occultation would be welcome additions to this thread. If you would like specific occultation or graze predictions for your location, please reply to this post with your longitude, latitude, elevation and time zone.

[maw lod qan]

At first I worried the high thin clouds would win.

But thankfully they moved through quickly.

Early on it was very early on with the sky being dark, but the timing worked out that the actual moment was after sun rise. I couldn't see Mars in the finder scope.

But, the camera could.

Lucky for me, even though the single images aren't the greatest, you can see Mars about to disappear behind the Moon.

I still get a great thrill seeing things like this.

A big thank you to the members here on the SGL for another heads up for this.