Moon Hides Venus Tuesday

mgarraha writes: "Sky and Telescope reports that the crescent Moon will pass directly in front of Venus during the daytime Tuesday for observers in North America. S&T also has a table of Venus disappearance and reappearance times for many locations. Venus is about 40 degrees away from the Sun and will be hidden for about an hour."

Occultation

[Paul Neubauer]

I can understand this not being on the main /. page but it is nice to have it here. While occultations of planets by the moon aren't super rare, they aren't that common either. The moon occults many stars, but the planets not as often, being so many fewer of them and not always in the right place.

Timing of occultations of stars is (was?) considered useful for getting better info about the moon's orbit and such. Occultations of planets aren't considered, last I checked, to be scientifically useful - but they are a neat thing to see.

Re:When the Moon eclipses the Sun...

[Paul Neubauer]

Actually you CAN see Venus in daylight, but you must know exactly where to look. Finding Venus in daylight isn't as easy as at night, of course. Having the moon as a guide just before the event will help.

When the Moon eclipses the Sun...

[SIGFPE]

...it's a really cool event. The apparent radius of the the Sun is slightly larger than that of the Moon and so you get all sorts of exciting visual phenomena. The sky goes dark, you get to see the profile of mountain ranges on the moon and even the Sun's corona.

When Venus is eclipsed by the Moon you can't see it any more. Newsworthy huh?

--

CRAP!

[Gannoc]

Man, I wish i'd read this before my Venus watching party last Monday was TOTALLY RUINED.

Thanks for nothing, /.

Re:When the Moon eclipses the Sun...

[AX.25]

Not only can't you see Venus when the Moon eclipses it, but you can't see Venus period since it occurs in the middle of the afternoon for all the US.

Re:Occultation

[mgarraha]

For about 10 seconds, the dark side of Venus will be visible while the bright side is still hidden. In the same way that a total solar eclipse allows observation of the corona, some observers get a chance to see whether the "ashen light" of Venus actually exists or is an optical illusion like the "canals" of Mars. One would need to have a dark sky at reappearance time and know exactly where to look. I doubt that many would travel to a Pacific island just for this, but you never know.

Eyewitness reports

[mgarraha]

Some folks have posted their observations [google.com] to sci.astro.amateur.

Eclipse?

[Blue Aardvark House]

This is the first time I've heard of planets being eclipsed by the Moon. I doubt I'll be able to see it; by midafternoon, we have a lot of towering cumulus clouds here in South Florida.