Occultation of Mars: January 13, 2025

 Monday evening 1/13, I got to see the Moon occult Mars. The forecast was for clear skies, but there were variable clouds throughout the day, and the Moon wasn't visible when I left work after 5pm and headed for my observing site. 

The western sky an hour after sunset

Clouds near the Moon

After a nice sunset, the Moon broke through, and I was able to start a photo sequence (Canon 90D, 100-400mm lens plus 1.4x teleconverter) and get to my 10" scope just after first contact. The seeing was pretty bad, with no detail on Mars. 

Mars about to disappear

While Mars was covered, I turned to Jupiter and caught Ganymede, Io, and Callisto in a tight diagonal line on one side of the planet. Europa was on the other side. It was a pretty unusual configuration.

Jupiter and moons at 6:27pm

The clouds had thinned out as I prepared for Mars to reappear. I got the camera set up, and then went back to the scope. Seeing was a little bit better. The first bit of Mars that peeked out seemed to be about the same color as the Moon. As Mars emerged over the next few seconds, I saw the North Polar Cap and then some dark detail on the disc (the Mare Acidalium and Mare Erythraeum complexes, and Sinus Meridiani). For as poor as the seeing was, these albedo features showed up well in the scope. It was a really cool view.

Cropped animation of the reappearance



I sketched Mars, looked at Jupiter again, and then headed home.

Mars at 7:00pm, sketched through my 10" scope at 165x


Moon halo as I was packing up


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