Moon Visits Sister Stars
Sometimes, the Moon visits the Pleiades. Technically, this means that the orbit of our Moon takes it directly in front of the famous Pleiades star cluster, which is far in the distance. The technical term for the event is an occultation, and the Moon is famous for its rare occultations of all planets and several well-known bright stars.
Image Credit: Cayetana Saiz
A shadow profile of asteroid (3560) Chenqian was measured during a stellar occultation for the first time by 3 observers in Germany and Poland on 2025 April 02.
The team of the Stellar Occultation Data Input System (SODIS) of IOTA/ES has calculated a preliminary profile of the asteroid of 31 x 22 km from these measurements.
https://cloud.occultwatcher.net/event/1552-3560-162731-647682-U055229
The latest issue of the Journal of Double Star Observations (JDSO) Vol. 21 No. 2 presents several papers about discoveries of double stars by measuring stellar occultations by asteroids.
Many thanks to the observers and the authors of the papers.
The disappearance of star Electra (17 Tauri) on the dark lunar limb during the occultation of the Pleiades by the Moon on 2025 April 01. This video was recorded by P. Lawrence.
Another time lapse video of the lunar occultation of the Pleiades on 2025 April 1. This time recorded by A. Kooiman.
Fantastic video of the occultation of the Pleiades by the Moon on 2025 April 01 recorded by D. Dierick.
Incest ‘is an issue of at least three persons within the family: there is the perpetrator, the victim, and the person who allowed the acts to be committed or repeated while they were known or revealed to him or her.’
(fr) https://facealinceste.fr/blog/enquete/parent-complice-parent-protecteur-enquete 
Eight observing stations in Poland and Germany observed successfully the stellar occultation by asteroid (88) Thisbe on 2025 March 19.
The chords are well placed across the shadow profile and confirm the DAMIT 3-D model 149. The profile measures 231 x 191 km.
Good work of the observers and the evaluation team of SODIS!
Comment les institutions [qui mentent] filtrent les suspicions d'inceste ?
"Véritables filtres entre les services de terrain et le procureur, les professionnels de la CRIP [Cellule de Recueil des informations préoccupantes], des travailleurs sociaux pour la plupart, évaluent, eux, non pas les faits suspectés, mais les suspicions. Ils décident (ou non) de les transmettre au substitut (du Procureur de la République] pour l’ouverture d’une enquête de police. Ils doivent rester prudents."
"Sans propos directs de l’enfant, les professionnels de la CRIP, embarrassés, sont pris entre des professionnels de terrain inquiets pour un enfant et des substituts exigeants sur la nécessité, la faisabilité et la chance de réussite d’une enquête de police. Ils interrogent la qualité de la suspicion. […]
"Deux travailleurs sociaux évaluent donc la situation de la famille concernée, mais sans pouvoir interroger la suspicion d’inceste, prérogative exclusive de la police. Ce qui les place, à leur tour, dans l’embarras, puisque cette suspicion d’inceste reste à l’origine de leur évaluation."
Léonore Le Caisne : https://theconversation.com/suspicion-dinceste-comment-un-signalement-est-il-traite-233955
The struggle is real battling clouds to show off the skies at WAS, but we occasionally get some breaks in for real science. 06880's Dan Woog interviewed our own Staples freshman Serena Diamond who regularly scans the skies for asteroids at the Westport Observatory. https://06880danwoog.com/2025/02/26/that-2032-asteroid-serena-diamond-says-dont-worry/
#WestportAstronomicalSociety #06880 #WestportObservatory #Asteroid #Occultation
Lunar occultation of Mars Jan 13, 2025. This photo was taken few minutes after the occultation. Mars is at around 1 o'clock.
An extremely rare stellar #occultation of a 12th magnitude star in Leo by the nucleus of mysterious comet 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann will take place on the evening of 5 February 2025: https://britastro.org/section_information_/comet-section-overview/mission-29p-2/mission-29p-centaur-comet-observing-campaign - the shadow track measures ~60 km across and will first pass over northern India including Delhi, Iran including Tehran, Türkiye including Istanbul, Bulgaria including Sofia, Bosnia, Italy and central France; observers anywhere within 150-200 km of the central line are encouraged to observe.
PALE RED DOT– WAS's Shannon Calvert found the tiny disk of Mars just before it passed behind the moon last night 1/13, from the Westport Observatory. This is a single frame photo taken with a Canon R6 DSLR through a Celestron 9.25" EdgeHD telescope on an iOptron CEM-60 mount. He'd never used this particular scope and mount before, so he had to figure it out along the way. Looks like he did!
Everyone else was photographing the Moon-Mars #occultation to the east, but I thought this view of the George Washington Masonic Temple Thingy deserved some shutter time. #alexandriaVA
In 1/2 hour - at 1:35 UTC - a live broadcast of the #Occultation of #Mars by the #Moon from Los Angeles on https://www.youtube.com/live/K5mSMUrnS9U
Setting an alarm to watch the Wolf Moon eat Mars in a few hours.
Sorry for those who wanted rocket landings on Mars.
Mars puts on quite the show tonight, 1/12 and tomorrow 1/13. It's the closest pass to Earth this evening and is as bright as Sirius at magnitude –1.4. Monday, the full Wolf Moon moves in front of Mars, gobbling it up at 9:21 pm and reappearing at 10:37. https://ow.ly/2eQT50UEWmm
