[glend (Glen)]

Coming up on the 22nd of February (a Saturday morning), there will be a daytime occultation of Saturn by the Moon which should be visible if your on your game and live south of Townsville.

There is a write up of this daytime observation event in the Feb/Mar 2014 issue of Australian Sky & Telescope on page 60.

In Brisbane the event will begin around 9:12am AEST , in Sydney 10:02am DST. Saturn will appear to approach the moon's bright edge and disappear behind the moon, reappearing later (11:10am in Sydney, and 10:14am in Brisbane) as it emerges from behind the dark edge of the moon. The challenge of course is to be in the right position to catch it as it reappears apparently from thin air (as that part of the moon will not be visible). The moon and Saturn will be around 35 degrees altitude in the western sky at the time of the event.

Aperture and magnification will be useful to capture this event and the author (Steve Kerr) recommends a red filter to darken the background and make it easier to find and track Saturn.

So let's get out there on Saturday morning the 22nd of February find this event.

Obviously, avoid pointing your scope anywhere near the sun. A solar filter is not required for this event and that is another reason to avoid the sun location carefully and ideally try to shelter the scope in the shade but with line of sight to the moon. Children must be carefully supervised to avoid accidental sun slews!.