Beginning of the occultation of Mars by Mercury in 2079, August 11, 1:26 UT
Steven C. Albers has looked into planetary occultation. See his article
Mutual Occultations of Planets: 1557 to 2230
Sky and Telescope March 1979 p 220-222
He wrote a high precision computer program to search for mutual occultations of planets. He found 21 such events in the period from 1557 to 2230 with none in the 20th century and only 2 in the 19th century. What do we have to look forward to in the next century? He lists 5 events but they do not occur until 2065 and after. Incidently, he did find the 1737 Venus-Mercury occultation seen by Bevis. I have added a few more mutual occultations with detail as found by using the software, GUIDE ver 7.0 (Project Pluto).
Of the 21 mutual planetary occultation found by Albers, 9 involved Mercury as the occulting body while and 8 involve Venus. There are two involving both Venus and Mercury, the one in 1737 and another in 2133. Only 4 mutual occultations occur exclusively between the superior planets.
I have divided the events according to planets involved.
The 2133 occultation occurs only 4o from the Sun with Venus near inferior conjunction while Mercury is on the other side of the Sun near superior conjunction. Not a very good situation for good observation.
The unusually long gap in mutual occultations during our time spans nearly 250 years from 1818 and the next one is in 2065. Both of these occultations are Jupiter- Venus events and the most spectacular type.
What of the next one in 2065 which a few young people have a chance of seeing? This will be an occultation of Jupiter by Venus but it is only 8o from the Sun and will be essentially unobservable. It surely would have been a beautiful occultation with two bright planets covering each other. Similar occultations occured between these two planets in 1570 and 1818 which surely would have been noticed by observers but no historical records have surfaced yet. There is one more predicted in 2123 and will take place at an elongation of 16o from the Sun.
| Year | Date/U.TIme | Elongation from the Sun | Venus, Jupiter Diameters Geocentric Separation | Comments | |
| 2 BC | 17 Jun 17:53 UT | 45oW | 26",32",28" | Very Large Elongation Occurs over Middle East |
|
| 1210 | 17 Sep 10:35 UT | 7oW | 10",31", 0" | Too Close to the Sun Central occultation |
|
| 1570 | 5 Feb 7:47 UT | 25oW | 11",31",18" | Occurred over South Atlantic, Argentina No Historic Record |
|
| 1818 | 3 Jan 21:51 UT | 16oW | 10",30",12" | Occurred over Far East No History Record Over Unpopulate Area |
|
| 2065 | 22 Nov 12:47 UT | 8oW | 10",29",14" | Too Close to the Sun | |
| 2123 | 14 Sep 15:26 UT | 16oE | 10",29", 6" | Occurs over the Pacific Ocean |
All the other Venus occultations of Jupiter have similar restrictions
Beginning of the occultation of Mars by Mercury in 2079, August 11, 1:26 UT
| Year | Other Planet | Date UT time | Elongation from the Sun |
Mercury and Planet Size and Separation | Observability Comments |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1708 | Uranus | 14 Jul 13:03 UT | 25oE | 6", 4", 8" | Uranus Not Discovered Yet | |
| 1708 | Jupiter | 4 Oct 12:46 UT | 1oE | 5", 28", 11" | Too Near the Sun | |
| 1737 | Venus | 28 May 21:50 | 22oE | 7", 52", 35" | Observed By Bevis Only historical detailed account |
|
| 1793 | Uranus | 21 Jul 5:40 UT | 24oE | 6", 4", 1" | Uranus Discovered 1781 Only Observable at long 160 W Australia - Japan |
|
| 1808 | Saturn | 9 Dec 20:35 UT | 20oW | 6", 14", 16" | Barely Overlap if seen at South Pole |
|
| 2067 | Neptune | 15 Jul 11:57 UT | 18oW | 6", 2" ,10" | Occultation only at North Pole with 24 hr daylight |
|
| 2079 | Mars | 11 Aug 1:30 UT | 11oW | 5", 4", 1" | Visible at Sunrise in Middle East | |
| 2088 | Jupiter | 27 Oct 13:46 UT | 5oW | 5", 29", 19" | Too Near the Sun | |
| 2094 | Jupiter | 7 Apr 10:46 UT | 2oW | 5", 31", 6" | Too Near the Sun | |
| 2126 | Mars | 29 Jul 16:07 UT | 9oW | 5", 4", 5" | ||
| 2133 | Venus | 3 Dec 14:10 UT | 4oE | 5", 63", 37" | Venus Large but Very Near the Sun |
These are rare events indeed!!! There are fewer on these type of events because these planets do not move as much among the stars.
It is unfortunate because they are alway much easier to observe since they occur at greater elongation from the Sun.
In the period that Albers looked (1557-2230) all involved Jupiter, none involve Saturn, and only one involves Mars. I have added three Mars events prior
to 1613 and one after 2223 from a table produced by GUIDE 7.0
| Year | Planets | Date Time(UT) | Elongation from the Sun | Diameters and Separation | Comments on Observability |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1170 | Mars Jupiter | 19 Sept 20:44UT Julian Calendar | 105oE | 11", 42", 13" | Observations recorded by Gevase of Canterbury and observers in China |
| 1387 | Mars Jupiter | 30 Sept 00:14 UT Julian Calendar | |||
| 1477 | Mars Saturn | 18 Oct 15:15 UT Julian Calendar | |||
| 1522 | Mars Saturn | 7 Feb 8:15UT Julian Calendar | |||
| 1613 | Jupiter Neptune | 4 Jan 2:08 UT | 108oW | 36", 2", 4" | Neptune not discovered yet Galileo Observed Jupiter Dec 28 but labeled Neptune as a star |
| 1623 | Jupiter Uranus | 15 Aug 17:03 UT | 9oW | 29", 4", 5" | Uranus yet to be discovered |
| 1702 | Jupiter Neptune | 19 Sep 13:26 UT | 165oW | 46", 3", 3" | Neptune not discovered yet |
| 2223 | Mars Jupiter | 2 Dec 12:39 UT | 89oE | 9", 38", 21" | 836 years since last one |
| 2478 | Mars Jupiter | 29 Aug 23:11 UT | 255 years since last one |
Gray (Project Pluto) in a scan over the period -1000 to 6000 did not find a single case where Jupiter and Saturn had a mutual occultation. He looked for close conjunctions and found the closest at 424 BC.
There will be a close approach of 6' arc of the two in 2020 and hence will give
a telescopic view of the two together. The Date of the event is 21 December 2020, at 18 h UT.
View of the Two as Seen in a Field of View of 0.3 degrees
