  TRANSITS AND OCCULTATIONS. No book professing to deal with eclipses would be complete without a few words of mention of “transits” and “occultations.” A transit is the passing of a primary planet across the Sun, or of a secondary planet (i.e. satellite) across its primary, whilst an occultation is the concealment of a star by the Moon, or of a secondary planet (i.e. satellite) by its primary. A little thought given to this definition will make it Practically the word “transit” in this connection is more especially applied to passages of the inferior planets, Mercury and Venus, across the Sun, or of the satellites of Jupiter across the disc of Jupiter, whilst the word “occultation” more particularly calls to mind the concealment of a star (apparently a little body) by the Moon (apparently a big body) or of a satellite of Jupiter (a little body) by Jupiter (a big body), the star and the satellite in each respective case passing behind the occulting body and being concealed for a shorter or longer time. Commonly the occulted body will remain hidden for an hour or two, more or less. In the case of Jupiter the satellites of that planet may also, on occasions, be seen to undergo eclipse in the shadow cast by Jupiter itself. An eclipse of a Jovian satellite is therefore on all fours in principle the same as an eclipse of the Moon, caused, as we know, by the Moon passing for a short time into the dark shadow cast by the Earth. The conditions just laid down in respect of Jupiter and its satellites also find a counterpart in the case of the satellites of Saturn, but whilst these phenomena are incessantly occurring and visible in the case of Jupiter, they are exceedingly rare in the case of Saturn owing to its greater distance and the difficulty of seeing most of its satellites because of their small apparent size. From the standpoint of an amateur astronomer the various phenomena which attend the movements of the satellites of Jupiter, constitute an endless variety of interesting scenes, which are the more deserving of attention in that they can be followed with the aid of a telescope of very moderate size and capabilities. Fig. 15-16.—OCCULTATION OF JUPITER, AUG. 7, 1889 (Immersion) Occultations of planets and stars by the Moon may also be recommended to the notice of the owners of small telescopes as events which are constantly happening and which may be readily observed. The Moon being rapidly in motion it will happen in point of fact that Fig. 17-18.—OCCULTATION OF JUPITER, AUG. 7, 1889 (Emersion). From the epoch of New to Full Moon the Moon moves with its dark edge foremost from the epoch of Full to New with its illuminated edge foremost. During therefore the first half of a lunation the objects occulted disappear at the dark edge and reappear at the illuminated edge, during the second half of a lunation things are vice versÂ. The most interesting time for watching occultations is with a young Moon no more than, say, from 2 to 6 days old, because under such circumstances the star occulted is suddenly extinguished at a point in the sky where there seems nothing to interfere with it. Footnotes: |
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