Saturn is our celebrity in the sky at the moment.
First its opposition yesterday- Sunday 11th May (closest approach to Earth- big and bright!) and now on Wednesday 14th, we have our first night time occultation event of Saturn and the Moon in over 10 years, wow! So, with it being so close, and its rings which are so beautifully opened up at the moment, it should make for some knock out photography coming our way!
If you don't have a telescope, just look to the east in the times given in my facebook post below, and you will see a bright yellow "star" (Saturn) disappear behind the Moon and re-appear on the other side of the Moon. Kids will love this I'm sure of it!
I was wondering how much success I'd have using my Canon EOS-1100 camera using prime focus on my 10" Dobsonian? I'm thinking Saturn might be moving too fast?
Below is the fb post I popped on the IceInSpace fb page today.
Lots of great information in it regarding this event.
Quote:
Heads up Australia!
*Occultation of Saturn by the Moon- 14th May, 2014*
"Roughly speaking the event will be visible south of a line drawn from the Sunshine Coast north of Brisbane to where the border of Western Australia and Northern Territory meet the Timor Sea. From north of this line the planet will appear very close to the moon. The brightness of the Moon will overwhelm Saturn's satellites with the exception of Titan which will be occulted approximately 5 to 11 minutes before the planet itself, depending on your location. From Western Australia the occultation begins just before the end of astronomical twilight."
Source: Astronomy 2014 Australia, page 38.
Astroblogger, Ian Musgrave gives tips & guides on viewing it, including a table listing the times for Australian capital cities.
http://bit.ly/1nE5Su0
This is the second of three occultation events this year of Saturn for Australia, with the next one due on the 4th of August. It's been over 10 years since Australia saw an occultation of Saturn by the Moon, so, why so many this year after so long? It's all nicely explained in the ABC link here: http://ab.co/1iFjvE1
AND A CALL FOR HELP FOR THOSE PHOTOGRAPHING THIS EVENT:
Gianluca Masi, owner & operator of the Virtual Telescope is planning on streaming this event live for all to enjoy. Last month's solar eclipse proved to be a great success- some of our IceInspace members contributed their images in real time to the VT, shown via YouTube.
Everyone who helped out was credited in a report and a beautiful poster of the event was made: http://bit.ly/1nEbeoY
So after such amazing success with Aussie's who were willing to help out, Giana's looking at doing it again. Your help will be greatly appreciated by so many who can't see this event, and fun for those wanting to relive the event afterwards on YouTube.
If you can please help out, the forum thread is:
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=120348
Image Credit: Damian Peach. Seen here is Saturn being occulted by the moon in 2007. Taken from the U.K.
-Suzy.
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