October Meeting

This year, the Society is hosting the Scottish Astronomy Weekend, which takes place on the 13th to 15th of October.

The Friday evening session will be combined with our usual monthly Society meeting. Society members please note that this replaces our usual session at the Smith for this month only. The meeting will take place at the Cowane Centre in Stirling, and will start at 7:00pm, instead of the usual 7:30.

Further details on our Meetings page

Grazing Lunar Occultation

This month, there is another grazing lunar occultation in the Stirling Area. The star SAO 164433 will be grazed by the Moon's southern limb at 19h 38m 59s UT on the 30th October. Occultations of stars by the Moon are fairly common, but grazing occultations are much rarer, and usually only visible from a small part of the Earth's surface

Precise timings can be used to measure the profiles of surface features on the Moon's limb.

The event will be visible along a line passing between Doune and Dunblane:
N 56.17274 W 04.05608. Map and diagram.

Observers placed on, or very close to the track of the graze will see the star appear and disappear several times as a result of the topography of features on the limb. Precise timings (to within a second if possible) can be used to map these limb features.

Further details at our October Occultation page.