Grazing Occultation of Regulus - 7th October 2007

With a thin waning crescent Moon, earthshine, and a bright first magnitude star, this was a good opportunity for astrophotographers. The graze line cut across mainland Britain from Lytham St Anne's, (south of Blackpool), to the Lincolnshire coast, south of Grimsby, via Preston, Blackburn, Burnley, Huddersfield, Barnsley, Doncaster, and Scunthorpe. A full occultation was seen south of this line, a close conjunction near the Moon's northern limb elsewhere, including the whole of Northern Ireland.

Grazing Occultation of Regulus

My congratulations to Mike Brown, located north of the graze line, for capturing this superb image of the close conjunction between Regulus and the Moon.

Jon Harper

Report by Mike Brown - Huntingdon, York

This was the only image I managed to get during extremely foggy conditions. For the rest of the approach imaging was impossible, as the fog was too dense and I was already using 100% gain! The equipment used is included as a footnote to the image.

Click anywhere on the image to see the higher resolution version

The next occultation of Regulus, visible from the UK, is not until December 8, 2017.