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Details:
On Dec. 8th I posted an animated GIF of the occultation of the Pleiades by the 99% Full Moon on Dec. 3rd. Converting standard photographs into .gif's never goes well, turning smooth gradients of color and light into relief maps of posterized edges. With so much glare the conversion went even more poorly than usual. I do wish we could post video instead--the action would've been a lot smoother and cleaner looking.
In this submission I went back to the original photos to make before/after frames of the brightest Pleiads that were occulted; the featured stars are circled. The photos were selected to best show the star, not necessarily show it closest to the Moon, because the moon's glare made the latter so low contrast it may not be visible on many monitors.
Electra, Maia, and Alcyone were eclipsed this time around (as well as Celaeno and Sterope, but they're much dimmer). A curiosity was that, in spite of it being a supermoon Full Moon (i.e. appearing larger than usual), it managed to squeeze between Merope and Taygeta at the same time without eclipsing either. If I had been 20 miles north or south of town, one or the other star would've been in a graze.
The original timelapse is here. That post includes impressions of the visual aspects of the occultation.
Images:
#1: Electra -- the first "bright" Pleiad to be eclipsed (around 6:00pm MST)
#2: Maia -- the next bright one in line
#3: Merope -- no eclipse here, nor for Taygeta. The red line shows the gap the Moon squeezed through without touching either star.
#4: Alcyone -- the last bright Pleiad to be eclipsed. The event was over by 8:00pm; the timelapse ran to 9:00pm to get the Moon far enough away to properly recognize the Pleiades.
Photo data:
Panasonic GX8 and G9 cameras, primary lens was 135mm, 1 sec exposure every 4 minutes.
Before/after photos were tightly cropped and the stars enlarged.
... date: Dec 3, 2025 5:00-8:00pm MST
Photographer's website:
No URL provided.
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