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