A comparison to our tiny star.
Posted on 03/03/2017 4:15:43 PM PST by BenLurkin
One of the sky's brightest stars will vanish behind the moon as seen from most of the contiguous U.S. and Central America on Saturday night. This eclipse will be widely visible at a convenient time: For the West, it will happen early in the evening, while viewers on the East Coast can watch the event in the late evening hours, approaching midnight....
Aldebaran is the brightest and one of the most colorful stars that can be hidden by the moon, and on Saturday night, it will disappear behind the dark portion, or "limb" of an almost-first-quarter moon (46 percent illuminated). If you're looking up at just the right moment, you should be able to see Aldebaran disappear with just your naked eye. Of course, binoculars or a telescope will provide a more stunning view. Here is an excellent chance to involve friends, family and even members of the general public in a most interesting astronomical event.
...
The star will be grazingly occulted for viewers at the northern limit line, extending from southern Vancouver Island, east along the border separating British Columbia from Washington state, then east-southeast from northern Montana to the central Great Lakes, finally moving out over the Atlantic Ocean at the coast of Rhode Island south of Newport.
The graze line will skim across the Canadian city of Mississauga, Ontario, the southern outskirts of Rochester, New York, and the northern part of Hartford, Connecticut. For a detailed view, see IOTA's webpage, with maps of various sections of the graze line: http://occultations.org/aldebaran/2017march/.
The line is actually a path no more than a couple of miles wide, within which telescope users can see Aldebaran vanish and reappear several times as the mountainous limb of the moon glides by. Observers north of the path will see a near miss.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
It is called an Occultaton and the Wikipedia page forth term even uses a image of the moon and the very same star in this article
“That’s no moon...”
I seem to be located in an area where a grazing occultation may be visible (although I should double check to make sure that my local horizon doesn’t get in the way - I’m in a narrow valley between some big hills).
Upon closer inspection, I’m more like 20 miles from such a location... Oh well...
A comparison to our tiny star.
yikes
A big ball full of so much hot flaming gas is hard to comprehend. /now I didn’t say “Rosie O’Donnell” directly
Yeah, well, there’s got to be no clouds.
In CNY?
right........
It’s a guarantee ANY time there’s something interesting happening in the sky.
“We’ve entered the Alderaan system”
Bookmark
That's not Aldebaran…
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