Daytime
skies are little boring to people with only one star to observe. Occasionally
we get treats like solar eclipse and transits, amazing celestial daytime events
that make the long wait worthwhile. On
15th February 2013, a meteor entered earth atmosphere and as it
burnt up, it lit up the skies of Chelyabinsk, Russia. Apart from these rare events, the actions
in the skies hide behind the glare of the sun during the day.
Lunar
occultation of stars and planets are events normally associated with night sky.
Moon occults stars and planets during daytime too but we cannot see these
events because, the bright Sun outshines everything in the sky. However, every
rule has an exception; we see Moon during daytime without any difficulty, and with
practice, we can also spot Venus with naked eye and it is an easy target for
telescope in the daytime.
This
February 26th there is an event involving Moon and Venus during
daytime(Readers of AKASHA will already know this from JAN-FEB issue). Moon will occult Venus on this day. Occultation of planets by Moon is
rare event, for example from Bangalore the next Occultation of Venus by Moon
will be in 2023 March 24th.
We have to take
Extreme precaution when planning to observe the event, equipment always has be pointed away from the Sun. Even
very small duration exposure to Sun’s rays through telescope or binocular can
damage the eyes permanently.
The
brightness of both Moon and Venus makes it good challenge for daytime
occultation observation with Moon at crescent phase and Venus close to half
phase at -4.5 magnitude, will be a great sight through the eyepiece.
Venus
will disappear from the lit part of the crescent Moon and reappear from the
dark part of Moon. Venus will be close to 15 minutes of arc from the brighter
edge of the moon at 10:30am IST, both should fit in to the same field of view
in a 6-inch telescope.
Here
are the times and altitude of Moon for February 26th Occultation:
Venus will disappear at 11:05am IST and at this time the
altitude of Moon will be 53 degrees.
Venus will reappear from the darker side of the Moon at 12:29pm IST. The
altitude of Moon at the reappearance of Venus will be 38 degrees.
