Interesting Occultations in 2000

Introduction

     The Moon often passes between Earth and a star, an event called an occultation. During an occultation a star suddenly disappears beyond the eastern limb of the moon. The star reappears from behind the western limb of the Moon some time later on. Because the Moon nearly moves through an angle about equal to its diameter every hour, the longest time for an occultation is about an hour and half. The time is shorter if the occultation is not central. But if the star appears to pass along a line just touching (tangent to) the edge of the Moon, then we call it "Grazing Occultation", where the star will disappear and reappear many times among the mountains and valleys along the Moon's edge for a period of a few minutes. Observers in different locations will see the occulted star's path beyond the Moon in different ways. See Fig.1, where both; Observer 3 and Observer 4 will see a total occultation, but the star's path is different, while Observer 2 will see a graze occultation. On the other hand Observer 1 will miss the occultation, and the star won't be occulted from his/her location.

Fig.1

Kindly find below a table of some interesting occultations which are visible from Amman in 2000, they can be observed using a telescope with a diameter of 60-mm or larger.

Remarks concerning the table:

Below is a table for the grazing occultations near Amman in 2000, they can be observed using a telescope with a diameter of 152-mm or larger.

Remarks concerning the table:

While orbiting around the Sun, an asteroid or a planet could hide a start behind its disk as seen from Earth. Kindly find below some interesting asteroidal occultations, which can be observed from Jordan using medium telescopes.

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