Occultations

Measuring Occultations

Occultations, simply put, happen when an object is temporarily hidden from view as another object passes between it and the viewer. There are many regular occultations that happen in the sky: every time the moon passes in front of stars, or when the moon blocks out our sun in a solar eclipse.

Where occultations get interesting is when they are used to measure details about distant objects that are otherwise difficult to see directly. Specifically, we can learn a great deal about asteroids and comets by taking precise measurements of how long they block out the light from background stars.

Through careful and repeated measurements, often collected by many observers around the world, we can determine details from these space objects like:

• Orbit
• Distance
• Size
• Shape
• Moons and Rings

WAS volunteer and Board Member, Dr. Kevin Green, organizes a team of volunteers to use the Westport Observatory’s 14″ Celestron EdgeHD in Meadows Tower on the WAS campus to measure occultations caused asteroids, comets, and other deep space objects. They specifically work to measure the objects on the regularly updated asteroidoccultation.com.

If you are interested in learning more, be sure to join us for one of our upcoming public lectures and become a member to get involved.