Lunar Occultation of Uranus - 1/01/23

I observed the event using my 15x70 binoculars, I tried 10x50s, but Uranus was washed out by the moon.  I was having a little trouble, observing without glasses, the binocular eyepieces fogged up and when I used my glasses, they fogged up.  Uranus showed it's obvious colour and I found that viewing the planet became more difficult when it approached the moon.  I continued to observe until a little after 11.  For once, the weather behaved itself.

While I was waiting, I noticed that Orion was rising and so was Lepus.  I turned my 15x70s towards Lepus and observed R Leporis.  Lying close to mu Leporis, R was very red and very bright.  To me, it was close in magnitude to mu, which is magnitude 3,2.  At maximum, R is magnitude 5.5, therefore it could not be that bright.  ???

Paul

Hello, one and all. 

I was amazed we had clear skies over Dublin on Sunday night. 
www.met.ie had said there would be problems with clouds. 
But they were wrong!
My only concern was the positioning of the Moon. 
You see, my neighbour has a tall tree, 
Then after that there are those 3 storey apartments I have told some of you about. 

So I had placed my apochromatic refractor close to a flower bed leaving as much space as possible. 
Thankfully I had no difficulties at all. 
I had no problems with these blocking things. 
The -11.2 magnitude 78% illuminated Moon was high in Aries. 
So with Darren on the phone observing through his 10" Dobsonian with his 74x eyepiece, both of us were ready. 
Over the years I have observed lunar occultations of Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. 
Also I have observed plenty of occultations of stars. 
It was my first time I was going to observe a lunar occultation of Uranus. I was excited to say the least. 
I was using my Meade 6.7mm eyepiece. 
It gives me 167x. 
All I had to do was keep the scope on both the Moon and Uranus.  
Of course I could just see the western side of the Moon with the 22% bit missing from that side.  
Uranus was hard to see at 40x. 
But it was easy to see at 112x and 167x. 
My apochromatic refractor loves to kill colours. 
So my view of Uranus didn't have the blue-green colour that Darren had. 
I could just about make the planet had a blue-grey colour. 
But I could see its disc very easily. 
At precisely 22.23UT, Luna started covering Uranus. 
It took about 10 to 12 seconds to do so. 
Success!
I feel I made personal history by this event. 
I also must thank Darren for his phone call earlier in the day as I was very busy in church all Sunday morning. 
We had checked the timing of this event from our Orbit magazine. 

I'm sorry some of you tried to see this event. 
It seems it was for telescopes only. 

I should tell you about some of the lunar features I observed too at 167x. 
I saw Plato (101km), Copernicus (93km) and its 3 central peaks, Reinhold (48km), Bullialdus (61km) and its 2 central peaks, Konig (23km), Kies (44km) and his pointy beard, Lubiniezsky (44km). Campanus (48km) and Mercator (47km), whose centres were in darkness. Both are in Palus Epidemiarum (300km). I also saw a good part of an unusual rille that I didn't realise what it was until I came in. It turned to be part of  Rimae Ramsden. I had never seen it before. The Ramsden crater was not visible at all. Rima Hesiodus (300km) looked very good indeed.

So that's it. 
I will have another report tomorrow. 
I observed some very nice things during the early part of Monday evening. 

Best regards and clear skies from Aubrey.   

Super stuff Aubrey, you nearly have the full suite of planetary occultations at this point.

Finbarr.

Thank you, Finbarr. 
I would say I would have an easier time observing a lunar occultation of Neptune rather than one of Mercury. 

Finbarr, you might have a better time with the Mars occultation that is occurring on 31st January 2023. But it has a horrible time: 4.25 on a Tuesday morning. The planet will be low in the western sky.

Clear skies from Aubrey. 

Hi All,

Paul, sounds like you made the most of situation. That colourful star in Lepus sounds delightful. I must try to have a look at it.

Aubrey, that's an excellent report, and I'm delighted you identified that lunar Rille...Rukl?

I managed to squeeze in a session last night. Using the 10 inch Scope. I observed Sinus Iridium at 75X and it looked stunning as the terminator was hugging its Northern cliff. [justify]I also took in Mars, but the seeing was poor last night. Consequently, I found it difficult to pull out any discernable detail on the planet.

However, the Great Orion Nebula, even with the light pollution LED streetlights, looked beautiful at 75X. The Trapezium was clear to see and the whispy appearance of the Nebula was evident. Earlier in the evening I also observed the Pleides, and Jupiter. Unfortunately,  trees obstructed the view of the occultation of Ganymede, but I did see Io, Europa, and Callisto. So, not a bad night in the end.

Clear skies,

Darren.[/justify]

Yes, Darren. 
Rimae Ramsden appears on the top of Map 63 in Rukl. 
It was great to be back observing our Moon again.
The Moon is far too low for me to see it from my back garden between the months September to November. 

I'm sorry I didn't have time today or tonight to list off my observations on Tuesday night, and I'm hardly at home tomorrow. But I promise I will do it on Thursday. 

Best regards from Aubrey.