Mars Lunar Occultation

Tonight, the full Moon occulted Mars near opposition. A Lunar Mars occultation is a special event in any case, but when the Moon is full and Mars is nearly the largest it will be for years, this is truly a rare event. I managed to get out under the sky tonight to snap a few images of the near occultation.

Weather conditions were far from favorable, with a strong wind from the East, and fast moving low cloud cover. I can also see from the images from my SLR that the seeing was bad, as I could see the effect using just my 300mm equiv. telephoto lens. During clear moments, the transparency was very low, with a slightly misty look to the moon. The full occultation was not visible from Ohio, so this is about as close an approach as I can show. Since the full Moon's apparent size is about 0.5 degrees, I can estimate that in this picture, my local closest approach was about 0.4 degrees.

The near occultation of Mars by Luna at approximately 0.4 degrees, as seen from Ashtabula, OH. This image was taken on December 23, 2007 at approximately 10:29 PM

Clear skies! And Merry Christmas!