Astroblog: Occultation of the Pleiades, Monday January 25, 2010

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Occultation of the Pleiades, Monday January 25, 2010

The Moon in front of the Pleiades as seen from Darwin, facing north at around 8:00 pm ACST on Monday January 25. While impressive to the unaided eye, it will be even better in binoculars or a small telescope.

In the early evening of Monday January 25 the Moon passes in front of (occults) the beautiful Pleiades star cluster as seen from northern and Eastern Australia, South-East Asia, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Australia will see the occulation from around 9:00pm AEDT (8:00 pm non-daylight saving time) with best views in the north of the Northern territory and Far North Queensland (where they will see bright Taygeta occulted). The rest of us will make do with 18 Tauri.

More information and local timings for the event is at http://home.mira.net/~reynella/skywatch/ssky.htm#Occult . Even in the west and central states, where we miss out on an occulattion, the sight of the Pleiades close to the Moon will be very lovely.

The over all best views will be in South-east Asia, the Philippines and New Guinea, for timings (Universal Time) in these locations set this IOTA table.