YESTERDAY MORNINGS ASTRO DOG CELESTIAL ADVENTURE – THE LUNAR OCCULTATION OF SATURN 🪐✨ - ️21/08/24
What an incredible morning yesterday morning was! Even though the clouds did spoil the show a little bit, we still had a great time observing and capturing some photographs of the amazing lunar occultation of the planet Saturn.
After publishing an information post about the occultation, we went on a little adventure to our cozy stargazing hub in Dalby Forest for the special celestial event.
On our journey to Dalby we could see the Moon was shining brightly in the sky and very close by we could see the beautiful ringed planet Saturn. Initially the skies were beautifully clear and the Moon and Saturn were easily visible towards the South. However, as we got closer to Dalby we began to see some clouds that threatened to spoil the show!
As soon as we arrived in Dalby, we began to set up three telescopes, including our refractor, large reflector and larger catadioptric telescope in preparation for the occultation. We were excited to see such an amazing astronomical event, but also a little nervous because of the incoming clouds.
We managed to finish setting up our refractor (that we were using for visual observing) and reflector (that had a camera attached) quite quickly. During this moment in time the clouds that were passing over the Moon and Saturn were fairly thin, and we managed to capture a fairly (but not completely) cloud free shot with our reflector telescope as the Moon approached Saturn. We left the reflector and camera that was attached to it to keep capturing images whilst we continued to set up our larger catadioptric telescope.
Unfortunately, as the Moon moved closer and closer to Saturn, the clouds began to thicken and obscure our view. We saw a few occasional glimpses of the Moon as the cloud travelled across the sky, and we hoped that the reflector had managed to capture an image through the cloud.
Not to be deterred, we continued to set up our large catadioptric telescope ready for the re-emergence of Saturn, and finished setting up about 10 minutes before Saturn was due to re-appear. Unfortunately, during the majority of the 45 minutes that Saturn was obscured by the Moon, the clouds were completely obscuring the Moon and we were there with all three telescopes ready, with all of our fingers and toes crossed that we would be able to see the final moments of the occultation/re-emergence of Saturn. We waited for those final 10 minutes in the runup to the re-emergence of Saturn with great anticipation and apprehension.
Unfortunately, the cloud cover continued to become worse. While the rest of the sky was perfectly clear, the portion of the sky that the Moon and Saturn were located in was engulfed and the clouds just kept on rolling in.
Although we didn’t get to see the beginning of the re-emergence of Saturn the clouds did thin out a little for a few brief moments which allowed us to catch a glimpse of the Moon and Saturn just after the end of the occultation.
Despite us not being able to observe all of the occultation, we were still very happy we managed to witness a portion of the special event.
Following the end of the occultation, we turned our telescopes towards Jupiter for a little visual observation before we packed up our equipment and headed home for a well deserved rest.
During the journey home we saw some beautiful pink and orange coloured clouds being illuminated in the morning sunlight. We stopped briefly to take a few photographs of these wonderful dramatic clouds and then continued home.
When we arrived home, we were keen to check what the cameras had captured but upon reviewing the images we were a little disappointed to find that the majority of our images were of dark clouds. Fortunately however, there were a handful of images just before and after the occultation in which we could see the Moon and Saturn. We were so pleased that we had managed to capture something in those fleeting moments of thinner cloud. These images weren’t perfect due to the cloud and we would have liked to have captured the whole event, but we were so happy that we managed to capture a few moments of this spectacular event.
We thought we would share some the images that we managed to capture during the occultation of Saturn with all of you. We hope you like them!
All in all, despite the cloud, we had a wonderful and memorable morning. We hope that some of you also had a great (and hopefully less cloudy) time during the amazing occultation of Saturn.
Clear Skies!
#astrodog #lunaroccultation #moon #saturn #jupiter #telescope #cloud #grr
