John O'Neill Nov 22, 2000
--- In guide-user@egroups.com, Roger Curry <rcurry@m...> wrote:
> Greetings!
>
> Just wanted to pass along an incredible coincidence.
>
> I was working with my astronomical society's vice president to
> set dates for 2001's public observing programs. We rotate
> between three public parks and the events are publicized through
> the park's newsletter. We always do the programs on Friday
> night and we try to take the Friday closest to First Quarter Moon
> during the calendar month.
>
> A problem arose with November, since the 1st Q date would
> fall on Nov. 23 and put it into conflict with the Thanksgiving
> holidays. So--do we move it up a week and have a bright
> full moon, or go back a week and try to show off some of the
> brighter DSO's? My friend asked me to check on Jupiter
> and Saturn to see if they would be observable next year on
> the 30th (full moon).
>
> I brought up Guide and set my date and the time as 8 p.m.,
> about half way through the observing session, then clicked
> on the planet icon to bring up Jupiter. Jupiter was just a few
> degrees off of the horizon at that time, so I tried Saturn.
>
> Instead of Saturn, I got the Full Moon. I thought I must have
> clicked the wrong button and did it again and again landed
> squarely on the full Moon. So I time stepped the Moon in
> 15 min increments and out popped Saturn from behind the
> Moon!
>
> It appears that the east coast will get a fine show! It shows
> first contact with Saturns rings at 00:19:15 (1 Dec 00) UTC
> (from Jacksonville, FL which is -5 from UTC) and it will take
> about a minute to completely occult the planet. Saturn will
> emerge (ring) at about 01:22:11.
>
> Because of my "discovery" of this event, we have changed
> the venue to an oceanside park to get the best horizon for
> the start of the occultation. I hope to have a low-light
> video camera at prime focus of a telescope with the video
> signal fed into a video recorder and a video projector so
> we can show the live event to everyone at the same time.
>
> I can not even think of how small of a chance it would be
> to randomly pick a date and time and to find a major event
> underway!
>
> Great program, Bill.
>
> Roger, in Jacksonville, FL
>
> ---------------
> Roger Curry
> Jacksonville, Florida
> Visit the NEFAS Web Site at www.nefas.org
> Roger's FTP site: ftp://rcurry.dns2go.com