Whatever Weds. Occultation of Antares

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Copyright ©2024 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 

PLEASE DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION.

January 8th just at dawn I photographed my first celestial event of the year. The Occultation of the crescent moon and Antares the brightest star in the constellation of Scorpius.

The tiny dot of light on the Earthshine side of the crescent moon is Antares right before it slipped behind the Moon. Venus the morning star shines brightly above and to the left of the Moon.

I give you three views, one with my star filter on my lens, one with my ultra wide angle lens, and one deeply cropped to show Antares slipping behind the Moon.

20mm view of the Crescent Moon, Venus, and Antares.

Crescent Moon, Antares, Venus dawn January 8, 2024

Venus above and left of the Crescent Moon, Antares a tiny dot of light on the Earthshine side of the Crescent Moon just before it disappeared behind the Moon.

I was in a bit of a rush putting on my star filter so it went on askew so some of the star lines aren’t clean, and worse it’s now stuck. It’s on too tight for me to unscrew it, and I broke my filter wrench some time ago removing a ND (neutral density) filter, and failed to replace it. DOH! I have ordered a new one…and not a plastic one this time. It should arrive today.

We had our first big snow drop that stuck on Sat/Sun. It required shoveling. My neighbor bought a new cordless snow-blower and did our driveway twice! I just shoveled the clean up and the road below our driveway. She’s a jewel! She said it took just 12 minutes to do the driveway. We’ve made a deal. She’ll do the snow-blower and I do the clean up shoveling on 3 driveways and sidewalks. I told her I’d spring for the Hot Cocoa with marshmallows!

We have another big storm coming this weekend which is going to mess up my plans to meet friends, and do some birding at one of our favorite California refuges. It’s going to snow here, and in the mountains I’d need to cross, and it’s got rain on the forecast for there. It’s always a risk in the winter though isn’t it. Looks like I’ll be cancelling my plans.

Hopefully, we can meetup in February.

That’s me all caught up. How’s it going for you? Were any of you up and notice the tiny reddish star right beside the moon Monday morning?

Nikon D810| Nikkor 24-120mm & Nikkor 20mmG| PS CC 25.3.1

more to come…

68 thoughts on “Whatever Weds. Occultation of Antares”

  2. Neat shots with fun and educational information. Sounds like you and your Neighbor have a good snow blowing and snow shoveling. removal plan. However remembering back to my snow shoveling days, I have come to the conclusion, that the hot Cocoa with marshmallows is the best part of this plan! lol. Sorry I Couldn’t resist, shoveling snow, is not one of my favorite things. I sure hope you don’t have to do a lot of that this winter.
    The one bad weather thing here is wind, and we have been having a good bit of it, but when I read and hear about the weather many others folks are having with the snow and all, I don’t mind the wind near as much. Hope your winter is mild.

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  4. Wow, beautiful capture, Deborah! Aw, winter has arrived. We’re getting another round of storms now through tomorrow, knowing that, I ran to the refuge yesterday for some birding, before they got displaced yet again! Poor birdies!!

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    1. Thank you so much, Donna! I hope you have/had a good birdy day at the refuge. We’ve got rain coming in to melt a lot of our snow.
      I haven’t been out birding since the 5th. I hope to get out a bit next week. In the meantime I’m enjoying all the sparrows that come to my feeder. There’s a Black-billed Magpie trying to get at the suet, and a Copper’s Hawk has come to sit near the feeder…probably hoping for a quail or sparrow breakfast. The quail love to peck at the ground under the feeder. So, there’s still birding going on, but I’m not able to use my camera as I scare off the birds. I’ve got a blind in my cart. I am going to push that buy button one day! 😂

      Have a great week-end!

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      1. Whew! Yes, I did have a great day birding again at the refuge!! And now I am still playing catchup on home chores, trying to squeeze in some photo processing, and am way behind to boot with email and blogs. And all worth it! Oh the craziness in retirement and hobbies! hehehe

        Birdies at the feeders certainly do bring us their enjoyment too! Hey, maybe ya should just push that buy button, I think it would be a cool idea to try!! 😁 Hope you’re weekend was great! Still have snow left after the rains that were coming in? We are getting some snow right now, maybe 2 inches, to turn to rain after midnight; fingers crossed it keeps snowing and I can venture out in my backyard in the morning to a pretty winter wonderland!

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        1. Yeah, I’m looking forward to the images from your latest trip to the refuge.

          Our snow is largely melted. Only a little strip left on the lawn where we don’t get much sun. There’s another storm coming in today.
          I hope to be out birding Friday morning.

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  5. We’ve got you beat in the wind speed competition — at least for right now. It’s blowing 27 mph with gusts of 47 mph — here comes our first front. The freezing drizzle/rain and lows around 22-24F will wait until Sunday or Monday to show up. No working on the docks then!

    Your photos of the occultation are great, despite your small problems. What’s interesting is that there were quite a few posts recently about a “sparkle” on the moon. Needless to say, that evoked every sort of weird theory, but I’m wondering now if people were seeing the occultation and didn’t know what they were looking at. Given the increasing amount of light pollution these days, and the lessened amount of time people spend looking at the sky rather than at their phones, it’s entirely possible.

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    1. You sure do have us beat with the wind! Our wind has calmed a bit it’s down to 9mph, with gusts of 14mph. Hang onto your hat!!

      Thank you so much, Linda! I think you’re right about the sparkle because it was fetching, and not at all usual to have something sparkling on the edge of the moon.

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    1. On reflection those of you on the East coast probably wouldn’t have seen it as it was happing in daylight your time. I couldn’t see Antares come out the other side because it was already too light out.
      My new filter wrenches arrived and a bit of elbow grease I was able to get the star filter off my lens.

      I’m going to hit the grocery store today and stock up on hot chocolate and marshmallows. 😀

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  7. Your photos are beautiful, even if your star filter broke. You definitely have a great snow shoveling plan with your neighbor. Best to you, Deborah. I have so many things I need to write / post, but January is the most difficult and time consuming month of teaching with writing children’s observations. I’m busy!

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    1. Thank you so much, Jennie! I was able to remove my star filter once the wrenches arrived. Yeah! It’s not broken so I will be able to use it again another day.

      No worries, you keep teaching, observing, and opening doors to exciting new avenues of exploration and learning. We’ll be here when you’ve got time to post and share what’s been going on in the Aqua Room.

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  9. Beautiful photos! Looks cold but peaceful… We are experiencing extreme cold weather in next few days so I’m staying indoors as much as possible. Supposed to be in the negatives and barely above. Burr! 🥶 Sorry you don’t get to make your trip.

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    1. Thank you so much, Jill! It’s cold here too. We got about 6 inches of snow Wednesday night so it was cold when I was out shoveling…just 12 degrees F out! Even with toe and hand warmers on my toes and fingers still froze. It’s warmer this morning 25 degrees F so I guess the snow is acting as a bit of an insulator. 😂I have to go the grocery store today so I’ll be braving the messy roads, but going much slower!
      Stay warm!!

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    1. Thank you so much! We got a whole bunch of snow last night. In fact I’m going to finish my tea, put my spikes on my boots, and go out and start shoveling. I might take a quick iPhone pic of the fresh snow too!
      It’s only 12 degrees so I’ll be bundled up!

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    1. Thank you so much, Robert! No, I didn’t have time to switch to my 500mm and by the time Antares came out the other side it was too light out to see it. I wanted to have landscape in the image anyway so, now that I have that out of my system if I see it again I’ll use wide and telephoto for something different.

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  14. I love the photos, Deborah. I am always grateful that you are out there in whatever conditions capturing these images and that you share them with us. Thanks.

    I didn’t know there was such a thing as a filter wrench. I hope yours arrives and solves the problem. Sorry about having to cancel your plans. This time of year, we can’t plan too far ahead, I guess.

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    1. Thank you so much, Dan for the lovely comment!

      If you use filters on your lens the filter wrench comes in handy. I only screw them on finger tight but, when using them on zoom lenses the zooming turns the lens and filter making the filter tighter. I’ve broken two plastic filter wrenches through the years so this time I bought a pair that I hope are sturdier as they’re not plastic. They arrived and I was able to get the filter off. 😀

      No, winter weather can be tricky so I made sure to book a room that had a good cancelation policy.

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  15. I had no idea what an “occultation of a crescent moon” was! You sent me down a wonderful rabbit hole to find out that lunar occultation in astronomy occurs when the Moon passes in front of celestial objects such as stars, planets, or asteroids. I read that due to its proximity, the Moon’s movement appears relatively fast, even against other planets in the Solar System. The duration of a lunar occultation of a planet typically lasts for approximately an hour.

    Your photography is magnificent! I love the different positions that you provided on your post.

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  16. Thanks for more lovey photography, Deborah. Our skies have been cloudy so these things we haven’t seen here. The moon has been out of sight for a while. I’m so glad you are able to capture and share such beautiful photos.

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  19. I’m viewing this on my phone so it’s hard to fully appreciate the beauty of your photos, Deborah. Sorry about your plans. We’re hoping to go to Tucson Saturday and up My. Lemmon so I might get to be in some snow!! Hurrah! Sounds like you made a good bargain with your neighbor.

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  20. I’m afraid I don’t know enough about astronomy to truly appreciate the event you capturerd, but I like the pictures a lot, especially the top one with the dark mountains tops underneath. So winter has arrived in your spot on earth. We do have some winter as well, it freezes some degrees at night and because of the wet weather from past montes there are lots of shallow bodies of water where we can ice skate on. During day time it hardly freezes but a rather strong north-eastern wind makes it feel really cold. As usual this won’t last very long. You made a good deal with you neighbour! Hot cocoa with marshmallows seems a treat for all year round. 🙂 Take care Deborah, it’s wise not to go on trips when the forcasts are to grim.

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    1. Thank you so much, Peter! I have visions of many of you enjoying a few hours of ice skating on the canals! Do you ice skate?
      After I shattered my wrist when I was 35 ice skating backwards and hit a bad spot in the ice I haven’t done it, and probably won’t ever again. I will snow shoe though. 😀

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  24. Wow, Deborah, another dazzling series of the sky. I really liked being introduced to Antares, how beautiful that you captured it before it slipped behind the moon. The crescent moon, the dawn light, the glorious open sky and mountain scene, and the bright, guiding light of Venus. Also really appreciated hearing about your troubles with the filter, because it brings home all that goes into providing photographic scenes like these. Sorry you won’t be going to what I think is probably Sacramento NWR, but there’s been so much rain on this side of the mountains that the migratory birds will probably stick around for a while. Cheers and so many thanks for the photos.

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    1. Thank you so much, Jet! Yes, you’re right we going to meet up at SNRW and also do Colusa.
      I did get a little Snow Goose fix on Sunday here. There were 7 out back on the golf course with the Canada Geese feeding between storms. After I uploaded the quick images I made of them I discovered 6 were Ross’s and only one was a Snow Goose.
      We’re hoping to meet up in February so, fingers crossed the birds are still there then.

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    1. LOL!! Not all Occults are alike.
      The storm is coming in. It’s super windy with pretty strong gusts now. 13mph wind with 30 mph gusts. One major road up to Reno is closed for high vehicles due to the winds. Semi’s can be tipped over with these winds.

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