Two Alignements in a Row : April 17th, the Moon occults Saturn.

Less than 48 hours after the total eclipse of the Moon, another nice event occured in our skies, an occultation of Saturn by the Moon. Such occultations are quite rare, although they use to come in series.

It also happened at a rather uncomfortable time (around 5H00) but we managed to watch it, again in perfect conditions. Below are some quick snapshots from before and after the event : sorry, we reserved the occultation itself (both immersion and emersion) for pure visual observing...

Just in case, the next occultation of Saturn from Chile will be on July, 8th...

Tiny planet Saturn approaching the bright limb of the giant Moon...

... same Saturn after emerging from the dark limb of the wanning Moon, not far from the craters of the terminator

Photo: Eric Escalera / Observatorio del Pangue - April 17th, 2014
Camera: Samsung ST77 at prime focus of 16" Meade LX200 scope

Two Alignements in a Row : April 15th, a Total Eclipse of the Moon.

Last night, we could witness in perfect conditions a complete Total Eclipse of the Moon, from 03H00 to 05H00 (local time). This was a clear eclipse, as the Moon disc appeared slighty orange in the total phase, that is consistent with the clear and clean skies of Chile.

Maybe the most impressive was a naked eye view, showing an unusually small and colored Moon accompagnied by brillant blue-hued star Spica a few degrees at left, and extremely brillant orange Mars at the bottom, all those surrounded by the deep starry sky, the rich southern Milky Way, and the shiny galactic centre almost at the zenith !...

Photo: Cristian Valenzuela / Observatorio del Pangue - April 15th, 2014
Camera: Xperia J cell phone at prime focus of 8" Orion SkyQuest scope