Oh Say Did You See ... Saturn/Moon Occultation?
By Jim Harford

By the Dawn's Early Light!

My first observation of a lunar occultation of a planet. Instrument: 10" Orion Dobson Newtonian

At 6:50 AM the sky glare was so bright the Moon was almost completely washed out and Saturn was only intermittently detectable as a smudge without definition. Two minutes before occultation the paper boy came by, and as usual, I gave him quick a peek -- but this time warned him this would NOT be an easy view. He couldn't even see the moon!

Getting back to the eyepiece all I saw was Moon. Had I missed it? No. I finally detected something at the Moon's edge which melded into Moon and then bothered me no more.