The Moon Occults Mars February 18 Before Dawn

I’ve been reading reports that the moon will approach and cover Mars for about an hour and a half early tomorrow morning. EarthSky quotes the occultation time as 3:38:04 am, Mars will emerge from behind the Moon around 4:29:13 am. They will be to the southeast, not far from the Milky Way galactic center, with several other planets in the sky.

Moon – Mars – Venus Conjunction Setting Over Mount Whitney from Jeff Sullivan on Vimeo.

The brightness of the sky will change a lot from 5:08 am the beginning of astronomical twilight on, and rather than expose for the exposure of the 24% crescent I’m going to go a bit brighter and see if I can get earth shine on the shaded part of the moon. My exposure for this time-lapse was 1 second at f/8, ISO 1600, but the moon crescent was 2%, so it was more of a “full earth” as seen from the moon, and the earth shine was brighter. So I’ll take a few test shots of the moon and if the earth shine is too hard to get, I’ll adjust my approach from there.

If I get up and shoot the event, I’ll be sure and post pictures!

Update February 29: turns out two of my three telephoto lenses need service, but I was able to capture the image at the top!