Moon Occults Saturn
Image Credit & Copyright:
Cory Schmitz
Sometimes Saturn disappears.
It doesn't really go away, though, it just disappears from view when our
Moon moves in front.
Such a Saturnian eclipse was visible along a
small swath of Earth -- from
Brazil to
Sri Lanka --
near the end of last month.
The
featured color image is a digital fusion of the
clearest images captured by successive videos of
the event
taken in red, green, and blue, and taken separately for
Saturn and the
comparative bright Moon.
The exposures were taken from
South Africa just before occultation -- and also just before sunrise.
When Saturn re-appeared on the other
side of the Moon almost two hours later, the
Sun had risen.
This year,
eclipses of Saturn by
the Moon occur
almost monthly, but, unfortunately,
are visible only to those with the right location
and with clear and dark skies.