The Mars Occultation In Dawn

On the Slovakian morning of 8th December 2022, planet Mars appeared in opposition to the Sun, making the opportunity to observe it the whole night from dusk until dawn about twice brighter than Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. But not just that. Just in the time of the opposition, at 5:36 UT, the planet was not visible because the Full Moon moved perfectly just in front of it and brought a spectacular visual show in a small telescope when occultation of the “red planet” occurred. When photographing the unique phenomenon nearby Spišské Podhradie, Slovakia, the Moon hid Mars just when dawn started. An hour after, very low over the horizon, Mars appeared on the deformed edge of the Moon again and thanks to the atmospheric refraction the planet was quite distorted as well. Here comes the whole 3-hours sequence of the show with about 5-minutes intervals of lunar motion in front of Mars.

Used Canon Ra, MTO 1100mm/f10.5, ISO 3200, 1/1000 exposures (from Vixen GP-2 mount).