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The Moon Has Two Super Meetings With Two Super Planets and Plays "Now You See It / Now You Don't" With Saturn
If you've ever wanted to find the two biggest planets, now is your chance because next week our nearest neighbor, the moon, will have a super close meeting with each of them, and on one night will actually pass right in front of one of them in a "now you see it, now you don't" game of celestial one-upsmanship. Next week, on Tuesday, February 19th, between 7 and 8 pm, face south where you'll see winter's Orion the Hunter and up to his right an exquisite almost first quarter moon in the constellation Taurus the Bull. Now usually Taurus has only one eye, the giant red star, Aldebaran, but because the second biggest planet in the solar system, 75,000-mile-wide Saturn, is currently visiting Taurus it temporarily gives him a second eye. In fact, many people have recently remarked about Taurus' new other eye. But Saturn appears as bright as Aldebaran only because it is so close, just 824 million miles away on the 19th. If, however, Aldebaran were as close as Saturn we'd all be scorched to death because Aldebaran is so huge we could fit 156 million Saturns inside it. Indeed Aldebaran is 30 million miles wide. It appears the same brightness as Saturn only because it is so much farther away--65 light years! But the night to mark on your calendar for moon, Saturn and Aldebaran watching is Wednesday night, the 20th, because in early evening the first quarter moon will huddle right up next to Saturn. If you live in North America or Canada, the moon will occult it, that is, pass right in front of Saturn and hide it for an hour or so depending on where you live See http://skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/occultations/article_297_1.asp for the timings. Unhappily, the chance to see the occultation stops just north of Bonaire. Although you can watch this occultation with the naked eye it is much more fun with a pair of binoculars or even a small telescope because you'll actually be able to see Saturn's rings slowly disappear behind the moon and then after a time slowly reappear in what I like to call a cosmic game of "now you see Saturn, now you don't." To obtain the exact times when Saturn will disappear behind the moon and then reappear go to Sky and Telescope Magazine's website which has the complete US and Canada city by city occultation time tables accompanied by J. Kelly Beatty's wonderful article on this best Saturn occultation of the year. You'll have to interpolate for Bonaire as it's not listed. Now on the next night, Thursday the 21st, a one-day-past-first-quarter moon will be directly between Saturn and Jupiter, and on the 22nd it will be parked right next to good old 88,000-mile-wide Jupiter which will be only 427 million miles away the 22nd and which will be beautiful when paired with the moon. So there you have it--two incredibly close meetings of the moon, Jupiter and Saturn giving you the perfect opportunity to find them. To recap, Tuesday the 19th, Wednesday the 20th, Saturn's occultation night, then Thursday the 21st and finally Friday the 22nd. Two meetings with two planets in a cosmic game of hide the planet.
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