Mars occultation by the moon for Mars opposition on December 8th, 2022
A week after the opposition
A small observation report
The weather forecasts were catastrophic throughout Germany, clouds and fog had been around for days and the forecasts for the next few days didn't look any better either. Nevertheless, I didn't want to miss out on the matter and got up around 5 a.m. to be able to prepare everything in peace. Because I know from experience: no matter how small the chance, it is there. Yes really!
Recordings: 40cm Newton, camera: ASI178mmc, EOS7D + Tamron70-300mm
Observation: binoculars and 70mm refractor.
At around 5:20 a.m. the moon actually peeked through a colorful cloud cover.
Soon I also saw Mars, which naturally boosted my activities considerably.
06:01:26 CET. Just before the moon begins to cover Mars. The image is rotated 90°. Moon approaches Mars from lower right.
06:01:36 CET. The whole spectacle lasts about 30s. Then Mars disappeared behind the moon for about 1 hour.
Once more clouds without end, everything dense and the Mars-Moon team sank lower and lower to the horizon. For a moment I thought about canceling...
06:57:20 CET. Just before Mars emerged from behind the moon again, there was indeed a new gap in the clouds. I was able to record the scene and observe it with a small refractor. What luck!
Of course, the process of covering was not the same everywhere. Depending on the location, there were slightly different times and different angles.
Jörg Schoppmeyer from Freiburg im Breisgau took this wonderful photo (in color). I projected my recording (SW) on it and you can see the difference very nicely.
Ralf Heckel from ISEI in Leipzig made a small 9MB animation out of my several tens of gigabytes of recordings. Warning, the video is reversed. The moon actually moves to the left.
There are always a few cloud filaments running through the picture.