Moon/Mars Occultation---A Mini Eclipse

A double treat for sky watchers on the evening of Wednesday, December 7, 2022-- Mars occulting (passing behind) the full moon, and reaching opposition (opposite to the Sun in the sky and its closest approach to Earth). The occultation of Mars and the moon amounted to a "mini" eclipse--the red planet passed behind the moon and was hidden by it from 9:04 pm to 10:00 pm CST. Most of the day on December 7 was clear and bright, but a thin veil of clouds began forming just before the appointed time of the event. Because of this, I had to wait for the moon to emerge through brief cloud gaps to photograph it, and clear image captures were not possible. By 10:00 pm the sky had almost completely clouded over. The sequential image above is a composite of the occultation event, from 8:48 pm to 9:02 pm, captured from my back deck. Air temperature was 27 degrees F. Each image is a 1/80 second exposure at f/5.6, ISO 1000, 300mm focal length.

Before dawn on Thursday, December 8, a large portion of the sky had cleared. This image looks west at 4:06 am CST. Note the larger separation of the two celestial bodies at this point. Mars shone at magnitude -1.87. Air temperature was 23 degrees F. 1/400 second exposure at f/5.6, ISO 250, 240mm focal length. Nikon D7200 DSLR camera. 

This was the scene earlier in the day on Wednesday, December 7. The image looks northwest at 5:32 am CST from 33rd Avenue at 12th Street SW in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The moon is partially obscured by shrouds of rolling fog, which was moving right-to-left in the image. iPhone 11 camera.