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Lunar occultation Wednesday evening
From: Paul Hirose
Date: 2014 Nov 23, 20:18 -0800
From: Paul Hirose
Date: 2014 Nov 23, 20:18 -0800
The western U.S. has a chance to see a lunar occultation on Nov. 27 at about 0340 UT (evening of Wednesday the 26th local time), when beta Capricorni disappears behind the dark limb of the crescent Moon. http://www.lunar-occultations.com/iota/bstar/1127zc2969.htm Beta Capricorni is actually a multiple system. Its main stars are magnitude 3.1 and 6.1, separated by 3.5 arcminutes. The brighter star has two close companions. The dimmer star has one companion. Due to the wide separation between the main stars, two distinct occultations should be visible. At the "Los Angeles" coordinates on the IOTA page referenced above, my lunar distance program (Lunar3) says the dimmer one will disappear at 03:25:53 UTC, and the brighter one 5m45s later, at 03:31:38. The latter time is one second off what the IOTA page says. If the weather cooperates I plan to use the occultation to test the program's accuracy.
