Lunar occultations of planets are somewhat more interesting than those of stars because planets take up a significant snippet of sky: when they pass behind the moon’s dark edge, they fade and vanish over several seconds rather than winking out. They also give the opportunity for cool pictures like this:

There are a bunch of monthly lunar occultations of Saturn coming up from December 2018 to November 2019. Five of these will be visible from at least part of Australia.

25 April will be a nice one for the people in the eastern states: starts late in the evening.

22 May is good for most of Australia. Bad news is that it starts just before sunrise and finishes after sunrise so the sky won’t be dark.

12 August will be visible from Queensland, NSW, NT and northern WA.

08 September is good one for WA, and at a convenient time.

02 November will be visible from southern Tasmania, but it is near sunset.

I can’t read thise properly on my phone. Could you explain what the concentric loops are in layman’s terms?

Witty Rejoinder said:

I can’t read thise properly on my phone. Could you explain what the concentric loops are in layman’s terms?

At each moment in time, there is a, um, Saturnalian shadow of the moon on the earth, about as wide as the moon.

Each of those rings represents such a shadow at a particular moment in time, in 10 minute increments.

dv said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

I can’t read thise properly on my phone. Could you explain what the concentric loops are in layman’s terms?

At each moment in time, there is a, um, Saturnalian shadow of the moon on the earth, about as wide as the moon.

Each of those rings represents such a shadow at a particular moment in time, in 10 minute increments.

Ta.

Someone needs to put an alert in their calendar to bump this thread nearer to the event/s.

Peak Warming Man said:

Someone needs to put an alert in their calendar to bump this thread nearer to the event/s.

Someone should totally do that

dv said:

Peak Warming Man said:

Someone needs to put an alert in their calendar to bump this thread nearer to the event/s.

Someone should totally do that

You are volunteered for that duty. Thank you.