Moon Occults Pleiades - North America - Dec 10/11

[Centaur]

The 97% illuminated waxing gibbous Moon will occult stars of the Pleiades (M45) cluster for North Americans during the night of 2008 DEC 10/11. Immersions will occur on the dark limb and emersions on the bright limb.

I’ve created a graze map of the 21 brightest Pleiades stars. Observers on a star’s graze path will be able to see that star winking on and off as lunar hills and valleys pass by. Those between a star’s northern and southern graze paths will witness a full occultation. Note that some of the northern graze paths are in outer space above the North Pole. To see the map, click: http://www.curtrenz.com/astronomical.html

Photos and descriptions of the event would be welcome additions to this thread. If you would like occultation or graze data for a specific location, please reply to this post with a longitude, latitude, time zone and elevation above sea level.

[Vultur]

If you would like occultation or graze data for a specific location, please reply to this post with a longitude, latitude, time zone and elevation above sea level.

30 N, 96 W, central standard time (US), 300 ft.

[Centaur]

30 N, 96 W, central standard time (US), 300 ft.

Vultur, the chart on my website applies to all of North America. If you are north of a star’s southern graze path and south of its northern graze path, you will witness a full occultation of that star. Interestingly, you may not have to travel too far to witness a graze for the 21st brightest of the Pleiades: HD 23712 at magnitude +6.5. Its northern graze path will cross Texas.

Your coordinates were only precise to the nearest full degree, therefore my timings for you will be quite approximate. For your given location I predict the immersion of HD 23712 on DEC 11 at 03:26:27 CST and emersion at 03:48:47.

Here’s an algorithm for drawing HD 23712’s northern graze path across Texas. It applies nowhere else. The only input is a longitude.

W = Western Longitude as a positive decimal value
M = W – 99
Latitude = 32.380683 + 0.358343 M – 0.004089 M²
Hour CST = 03.56802 – 0.01521 M – 0.00023 M²

The only one among the six brightest Pleiades that will be occulted at your given location is the sixth brightest, Taygete at magnitude 4.3. I predict its immersion at 01:54:24 CST and emersion at 02:39:17. Again, those times are very approximate due to the imprecision of the geographic coordinates.