Not only was tonight's full moon a wolf moon, but it also took the opportunity to hide one of our neighbors - Mars. A relatively rare event called an occultation took place. Rare at least for individual areas on earth. Similar to an eclipse, the moon and Mars need to align to our perspective, so the moon passes in front of the planet, hiding it from view for about an hour.
Today's occultation took place between 8:07 PM and 9:17 PM, where Mars disappeared at the bottom left of the moon, and reappeared at the top.
It was said you could watch with the unaided eye, but we didn't see anything until Mars was quite a distance from the moon, probably due to the glare. With a camera and 1100mm lens set up, it was visible and really quite red.
The series of images here were taken handheld, with no tripod. It's not unusual to capture images of the moon handheld; it's really quite bright. However, I would have been happier using my tripod, but it was 80 miles away.
The image below shows Mars as it just peeks over the top of the moon.
This image shows Mars a few moments after it reappeared from behind the Moon.
The image below shows Mars as it just peeks over the top of the moon.
This image shows Mars a few moments after it reappeared from behind the Moon.
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