There was a lunar occultation of Mars on the evening of 13 January 2025. An luncar occultation is when the disk of the Moon (or Luna) passes in front of a star or planet. This was an easy event to observe with the Moon low in the eastern sky.
The Moon and Mars. Mars has just reappeard from behind the lunar disk.
My plan was to shoot several/many images of the ingress and then multiple images of the egress. Unfortunately, most of the images (but not all) were out of focus. I suspect that the rapid cooling of the telephoto lens was the cause of lost focus. Once I noticed the issue and re-focused it stayed in focus.
Time lapse of the Moon and Mars.
I shot images at 3-second intervals as egress started then switched to 30-second intervals. These were assembled into a time-lapse video, shown below.
The next Moon-Mars occultation visible in North America will occur in February, 2042.
A few days ago the waxing crescent Moon joined the planets Mercury, Venus, and Mars in the evening sky. A few clouds and the reflection of the evening sky in the lake added a bit of color to the scene.
Mercury, Venus, Mars, and the Moon in the evening sky.Mercury, Venus, Mars, and the Moon in the evening sky (with labels).Screen capture from Stellarium.app showing the positions of the planets and Moon in the evening sky.
Afterwards, I stayed around to watch the rocket launch described in the previous post.
Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) continues to be a interesting object in the night sky for photography, telescopes, and binoculars. Unfortunately, it never got bright enough to be an easy object for the unaided eye. One could sometimes see it when viewing it from very dark locations without the Moon present–but usually only with averted vision. At its brightest it was reported to have reached magnitude +5. The comet should fade rather rapidly in February and may be as faint as magnitude +8 by the end of the month.
The comet made its closest approach to the sun on 12 January 2023 (1.11 AU; 166 million km) and its closest approach to Earth on 01 February 2023 (0.28 AU; 42 million km). See the included Solar System map that shows the location of the comet relative to Earth or visit TheSkyLive.com for an interactive version.
Schematic diagram showing position of Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) relative to other bodies in the Solar System.
Here are a few of the better images I have been able to capture of the comet over the past few weeks. These have used a variety of lenses but always the same camera, tripod, and star tracker.
These photos were taken on 22 January 2023 using a manual focus Nikon NIKKOR 80-200mm f/4 AI-S zoom lens. This lens has the advantage of having a hard stop at ∞ making it very easy to focus. Image stacking was done using Deep Sky Stacker.
Both of these images of the comet show the tail (pointing up) and the antitail (pointing down). From Wikipedia:
An antitail is an apparent spike projecting from a comet’s coma which seems to go towards the Sun, and thus geometrically opposite to the other tails: the ion tail and the dust tail. However, this phenomenon is an optical illusion that is seen from the Earth…
Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) with tail and antitail. Images were stacked using Deep Sky Stacker with both stars and comet fixed.Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) with tail and antitail. Images were stacked using Deep Sky Stacker with comet fixed but stars allowed to move.
And here is a time-lapse movie of the motion of the comet during the period 0359 through 0435 MST.
Time-lapse video of Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) from 0358–0454 MST 22 January 2023.
A few days later I was able to capture both the dust tail and the ion tail. Stacking was done using Deep Sky Stacker. This was shot with the Nikon NIKKOR ED 180mm f/2.8 AI-S manual focus lens.
Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) showing both the dust trail and ion trail on 28 January 2023.
Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) with Mars and Pleiades star cluster.A closer view of Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) with Mars and Pleiades star cluster and the Taurus Molecular Cloud.
Time-lapse video of Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) and Mars from 1926–2029 MST 10 February 2023.
Lastly, a time-lapse video of the motion of the comet also shows a plethora of satellites moving across the sky.
Later this week the comet will pass close to the Hyades star cluster. If skies are clear I’ll be back out shooting more photos of the comet.
Note: Both of the videos incorrectly label the comet ZTH rather than ZTF.
There are currently four planets easily visible in the morning sky: Jupiter, Venus, Mars, and Saturn. Prevously they had been fairly evenly spaced and in a line sloping upward from the east to southeast. Now, however, Venus is quickly moving lower in the sky towards Jupiter and they will pass by each other in a few days. In the meantime, the crescent Moon joined the planetary quartet this week.
Four planets and the Moon (0453 MST 28 April 2022).Four planets and the Moon with annotations (0453 MST 28 April 2022).Screen shot from Stellarium showing the four planets and the FOV from a 24mm lens.
Here is an image from 0453 MST 28 April 2022. The Moon was partially obscured by smoke low on the horizon from western wildfires. Also shown is a screen shot from Stellarium showing the four planets and Moon with an overlay of the field of view from a 24mm lens.
There are currently four planets easily visible in the morning sky: Jupiter, Venus, Mars, and Saturn. For a few days they have been fairly evenly spaced and in a line sloping upward from the east to southeast. Next week the slim crescent Moon will join them but the spacing will be a bit different.
Four planets in the eastern sky before dawn.
Here is a shot from about 0502 MST 21 April 2022. Twilight was already brightening the horizon so perhaps I should have been there a half hour earlier. Also shown is a screen shot from Stellarium showing the four planets with an overlay of the field of view from a 24mm lens.
Screen shot from Stellarium showing the four planets and the FOV from a 24mm lens.
This was taken from the “City Overlook at Lowell Observatory” which is really just a small, designated pulloff of the road to the observatory. It’s nice to know that the City recognizes the value of this location and is working to preserve it.
