page_title: Occultation
section_title: Occultations by the Moon
hierarchical_section_title: Occultation / Occultations by the Moon
caption_attribution_description: Photo of Jupiter being occulted by the moon, taken on 16 Jun 2005 at about 6:10 PM in Nelson New Zealand (NZ Time) English: Jupiter several minutes before it disappeared behind the moon on 16 Jun 2005 (taken from Nelson, New Zealand).
context_page_description: An occultation is an event that occurs when one object is hidden by another object that passes between it and the observer. The term is often used in astronomy, but can also refer to any situation in which an object in the foreground blocks from view an object in the background. In this general sense, occultation applies to the visual scene observed from low-flying aircraft when foreground objects obscure distant objects dynamically, as the scene changes over time.
  If the closer body does not entirely conceal the farther one, the event is called a transit. Both transit and occultation may be referred to generally as occlusion; and if a shadow is cast onto the observer, it is called an eclipse.
context_section_description: The term occultation is most frequently used to describe those relatively frequent occasions when the Moon passes in front of a star during the course of its orbital motion around the Earth. Since the Moon, with an angular speed with respect to the stars of 0.55 arcsec/s or 2.7 μrad/s, has a very thin atmosphere and stars have an angular diameter of at most 0.057 arcseconds or 0.28 μrad, a star that is occulted by the Moon will disappear or reappear in 0.1 seconds or less on the Moon's edge, or limb. Events that take place on the Moon's dark limb are of particular interest to observers, because the lack of glare allows easier observation and timing.
  The Moon's orbit is inclined slightly with respect to the ecliptic (see orbit of the Moon) meaning any stars with an ecliptic latitude of less than about ± 6.5 degrees may be occulted by it. Three first magnitude stars appear well within that band – Regulus, Spica and Antares – meaning they may be occulted by the Moon or by planets. Occultations of Aldebaran are in this epoch only possible by the Moon, because the planets pass Aldebaran to the north. Neither planetary nor lunar occultations of Pollux are currently possible, however in several thousand years this will be the case, as it was in the far past. Some notably close deep-sky objects, such as the Pleiades, can be occulted by the Moon.
  Within a few kilometres of the edge of an occultation's predicted path, referred to as its northern or southern limit, an observer may see the star intermittently disappearing and reappearing as the irregular limb of the Moon moves past the star, creating what is known as a grazing lunar occultation. From an observational and scientific standpoint, these "grazes" are the most dynamic and interesting of lunar occultations.
  The accurate timing of lunar occultations is performed regularly by (primarily amateur) astronomers. Lunar occultations timed to an accuracy of a few tenths of a second have various scientific uses, particularly in refining our knowledge of lunar topography. Photoelectric analysis of lunar occultations have also discovered some stars to be very close visual or spectroscopic binaries. Some angular diameters of stars have been measured by timing of lunar occultations, which is useful for determining effective temperatures of those stars. Early radio astronomers found occultations of radio sources by the Moon valuable for determining their exact positions, because the long wavelength of radio waves limited the resolution available through direct observation. This was crucial for the unambiguous identification of the radio source 3C 273 with the optical quasar and its jet, and a fundamental prerequisite for Maarten Schmidt's discovery of the cosmological nature of quasars.
  Several times during the year the Moon can be seen occulting a planet. Since planets, unlike stars, have significant angular sizes, lunar occultations of planets will create a narrow zone on Earth from which a partial occultation of the planet will occur. An observer located within that narrow zone could observe the planet's disk partly blocked by the slowly moving Moon. The same mechanism can be seen with the Sun, where observers on Earth will view it as a solar eclipse. Therefore, a total solar eclipse is essentially the Moon occulting the Sun.
caption: Jupiter (the bright object in the upper right) a few minutes before being occulted by the Moon on 16 June 2005
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