On 1st April, a waxing 10% crescent moon paid a visit to the Pleiades, the Seven Sisters. I’ve photographed previous encounters between the two, but the thin aspect of the moon made this occasion special. It was an opportunity to see the two when the moon wasn’t quite so bright and therefore less likely to outshine the delicate sparkle of the star cluster.

The event began at about 9.30 pm. Here is the moon on its approach. Taken with a Panasonic Lumix GF7 camera and an old Carl Zeiss 135mm lens.

Over the next few hours, the moon gradually obscured the stars of the cluster. The Seven Sisters are each individually named (all nine of them). Here is a map from NASA, available on Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiades#Composition

For the occultations themselves, I’m showing pictures from my Skywatcher 150p, again with the Panasonic Lumix camera.

First to disappear, at 9.49, was Electra.

At 10.04 it was the turn of Caleano.

At 10.22 Merope was gone.

The final star I was able to watch was Alcyone, at 10.44.

Sadly, after this the moon and the cluster were getting too low on the horizon for me to see them from my back garden. I’m sure there will be other meetings between the two.