Animation of grazing occultation of Atlas

[StephenM]

Hi all,

I've put together an animation covering about 19 minutes of the Pleiades occultation last night, during which there was a predicted grazing occultation of the star Atlas. I didn't manage to capture a good image at the critical time, but got several images just before and after the occultation.

Its amazing to see how far the moon travels against the background stars in just 19 minutes!

Anyway, here it is. Hope you like it!

Cheers,
Stephen

[lacad01]

That looks pretty good Stephen :thumbsup:

[Clayton]

Good work. That's very interesting to look at.

[Quark]

Hi Stephen,

A grazing occultation can be most impressive and an amazing event to experience.

Back in 2008, I think, along with fellow Broken Hill IIS'er Kevnool I was part of a team involved in timing a grazing occultation of Antares.

We were positioned along the path of the graze by Dave Herald about 100 km up the Tibooburra road and it was just amazing to see Antares disappear and reappear several times as it went behind various mountains along the limb of the Moon. At the same time we had beep box's synchronized for our time signal while we recorded our obs on tape. A most memorable experience indeed, which your animation reminded me of.

Regards
Trevor

[StephenM]

Thanks Adam, Clayton and Trevor! Glad you like it. I hadn't planned on making an animation like this, so the frames are not very evenly spaced. Next time I'll try and take an image at more regular intervals!

That Antares graze sounds spectacular Trevor. I remember we had a very close approach as viewed from Brisbane.

Cheers,
Stephen