Last night we had beautifully clear skies to see the moon occult the bright star Aldebaran. An occultation is anything passes between an object and the observer. In this case, the moon passed between us and the star. We set up our telescope and binoculars so Jen and I could both view it in real time. Since this was a blue-sky event occurring well before sunset (between 5:30 and 6:45 pm), it was pretty challenging to pick out the star in contrast to the brighter and larger moon in a sunlit sky. At the eyepiece, it was absolutely stunning to see the star suddenly disappear behind the moon; like a light suddenly extinguished. About an hour and 15 minutes later, Jen and I patiently waited for Aldebaran to rise over the lunar landscape. We both were able to see it just as it popped back into view and then gain greater and greater separation from the moon. To me it's simply staggering to think about this perfect cosmic alignment spanning 66.6 light years. For about an hour, earth, the moon and this distant star formed a straight line stretching 391,140,000,000,000 miles.
The picture above was taken a little later in the evening, once the sky had grown more fully dark. The moon is obvious and Aldebaran is in the lower right corner. I thought about trying to capture Aldebaran as it just came back into view but figured I'd mess up the exposure and didn't want to miss it. Seeing it live was well worth it!
