Posted on 01/15/2025 11:52:46 AM PST by MtnClimber
Explanation: Does the Moon ever engulf Mars? Yes, but only in the sense that it moves in front, which happens on rare occasions. This happened just yesterday, though, as seen from some locations in North America and western Africa. This occultation was notable not only because the Moon was a fully lit Wolf Moon, but because Mars was near its largest and brightest, moving to opposition -- the closest to the Earth in its orbit -- only tomorrow. The engulfing, more formally called an occultation, typically lasting about an hour. The featured image was taken from near Chicago, Illinois, USA just as Earth's largest satellite was angularly moving away from the much more distant red planet. Our Moon occasionally moves in front of all of the Solar System's planets. Given the temporary alignment of orbital planes, the next time our Moon eclipses Mars will be a relatively soon February 9.
For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.
🪐 🌟 🌌 🍔
That’s a term I’ve never heard before. Full moon in January—Wolf Moon. Whatever.
Is that for real? How did they get it to focus in two different places?
Higher F stops
Infinity focus for both objects- they’re that far away. I watched it live in my telescope and both were sharp focused. It wasn’t as nice as what the photographer captured, but they were both sharp. Pretty neat.
Wow.
Mars was not harmed.
Yep, higher f stops will give near infinite depth of field at that distance. That will lower shutter speed though. And the moon will be moving the most in this image.
It only took NASA a day or so to post it to APOD! (And I was standing out in 20F weather with binoculars for this!)
Yes, it looks like the white area is one of the poles. Probably frozen CO2, but there could be some water ice under that.
Hungry like a Wolf?
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