Mars Occultation, 08 12 2022

[Mandy D]

Mars and the Moon getting closer together, now fit on full-frame sensor of D800 at 600 mm FL.

[Mandy D]

Just over an hour later at 23:40, they are noticably closer.

[Mandy D]

00:40, now and the gap is closing.

[Mandy D]

01:38 - Mars approaching Moon.

[Mandy D]

02:39 - Mars quite close to Moon, now.

[Mandy D]

03:35 - Mars now appears just over one lunar diameter away from our Moon.

Edited December 8, 2022 by Mandy D

[Mandy D]

04:33 - Mars within half a Moon diameter.

[Mandy D]

04:42 - Mars within a quarter of a Moon diameter

[Mandy D]

04:52 - Mars very close to lunar limb. Invisible to naked eye.

[Les Ewan]

Nice sequence. Ideal conditions too.

[Mandy D]

04:58 - Mars touching lunar limb

[Space Hopper]

Nice 😀

From Derby, i was watching it through the scope and i had contact at 04:57:30, with disappearance 04:58:10 (+/- a few seconds)

Very bright, but it was fun to watch, and not something you see very often.

I'll check for reappearance, but a few clouds have rolled in now.

[Mandy D]

4 hours ago, Space Hopper said:

Nice 😀

From Derby, i was watching it through the scope and i had contact at 04:57:30, with disappearance 04:58:10 (+/- a few seconds)

Very bright, but it was fun to watch, and not something you see very often.

I'll check for reappearance, but a few clouds have rolled in now.

The clock on my D800 is 1 min 07 sec fast, so correcting for that, I believe I have a time for first contact of 04:56:37 (± whatever) - this comes from two consecutive photos, one showing the full disc and the next showing Mars begining to go behind the Moon, both with the exact same time, so within that one second period. Disappearance time I got was 04:57:41. I'm out of focus on the Moon at this point or have some haze in the sky so don't have a clean edge, but there appears to be a definite reddish smudge where Mars should be.

Looking at an image taken at 04:57:37, the edge of Mars is most definitely still visible.

Checking my last imaging session, everything was reasonably sharp at the begining, but gets gradually more blurred as time progresses, so I think it must be atmospherics. There were some dense, visible clouds below the Moon, but I thought the Moon was in clear sky at the time; apparently not. Oh well!

I'm about 30 km north of Derby city centre and a smidge to the east.

[Mandy D]

04:33 - This is cropped from the last good image I got. After this time, things started to get hazy, but here Mars is still a good distance from the Moon and nice and sharp. The crop is approximately 1/3 linear of the full frame.

nikon D800, 300 mm f/4 prime lens with x2 teleconverter (so f/8), 1/640, ISO-400. Processing in GIMP to increase contrast & saturation and sharpen.

 

Edited December 8, 2022 by Mandy D
Change image

[Mandy D]

5 hours ago, Les Ewan said:

Nice sequence. Ideal conditions too.

@Les Ewan Thank you! It was a fun night and I am now just a bit tired. Conditions down here were pretty perfect until 25 minutes before first contact, when the seeing became hazy due to clouds forming on my western horizon. So, the last photos were rather blurry, but at least we did not completely lose Mars, well not until last contact, of course!

[knobby]

Really nice Mandy, I admire your dedication ... It was bloomin freezing here !

[Mandy D]

8 minutes ago, knobby said:

Really nice Mandy, I admire your dedication ... It was bloomin freezing here !

Thank you! It is nice when your work is appreciated, especially after all the trials and tribulations involved in achieving the end result. The cold was not much of a problem, as I only spent 5 minutes outside each hour, until the last half hour, when it was manic. Biggest issue was shredding my ankle on brambles in the dark!

Have you posted any images?

[knobby]

Not from last night but managed a quick smash n grab between clouds on Monday.

[Mandy D]

04:57 - re-worked image of first contact, with Mars brightened and the Moon sharpened.

[U Cyg]

Nice set of images.  Well done on sticking it out, it must have been cold out there. brrr

 

[Mandy D]

10 minutes ago, U Cyg said:

Nice set of images.  Well done on sticking it out, it must have been cold out there. brrr

 

Thank you!

It was not so bad, as I was only outside for 5 minutes every hour until the last mad half hour. If I'm doing stuff, the cold doesn't bother me too much.

[U Cyg]

Quote

Thank you!

It was not so bad, as I was only outside for 5 minutes every hour until the last mad half hour. If I'm doing stuff, the cold doesn't bother me too much.

It never used to bother me either, I often did all-nighters in the frost, but now, at 77, I feel the cold and would rather be inside in the warm!  Getting older is no fun,

I will have to take up knitting again.😁

Angie