πŸ”­ Sky Events from SCOB

The rare, timed sights over Jurong β€” the Moon covering a star, or the space station crossing the Sun. Science Centre Observatory.
An occultation is when the Moon covers a star or planet β€” the object blinks out at the Moon’s edge, then reappears. A close pass is a near-miss that’s still a lovely sight. Times are Singapore time (SGT). Whether an event is visible depends on the Moon being above the horizon here β€” many happen in daylight or with the Moon down.
β˜€οΈ Never point a telescope, finder, camera or your eye at the Sun without a certified full-aperture solar filter fitted over the front of the tube. A solar transit lasts under a second; permanent blindness takes less. If in doubt, do it on the Moon instead β€” no filter, no risk, and it looks just as good.

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What you are actually trying to catch

A transit is not a pass. On an ordinary pass the station drifts across the sky for several minutes. A transit is the instant its silhouette crosses the disc of the Sun or the Moon β€” and because the station is moving at nearly 8 km per second, that takes about half a second. You will not see it happen in an eyepiece. You record video and find it afterwards, frame by frame.

The path is brutally narrow. The station's shadow-line sweeps a strip only a few kilometres wide across the ground. Stand in Bishan instead of Jurong and the same event simply does not happen for you. Every prediction on this page is computed for the observatory's exact coordinates and is worthless a short drive away β€” which is also why these are so much rarer than passes: from any one fixed spot, a solar transit turns up only every month or two.

How to record one. Set up at least 20 minutes early and get focus perfect on a sunspot or a lunar crater. Shoot the highest frame rate you can β€” at 30 fps a 0.6-second transit gives you about 18 frames; at 120 fps you get 70 and can make a real sequence. Start recording a full minute before the predicted time and keep going a minute after. Do not touch focus once the clock is running.

Occultations: computed from the Moon’s topocentric (parallax-corrected) position for SCOB, scanning bright zodiac stars (Aldebaran, Regulus, Spica, Antares) and the planets; times Β±a few minutes β€” check IOTA / Lunar Occultation Workbench before timing precisely.
Transits: satellite orbits propagated on-device with satellite.js (SGP4) from CelesTrak elements; Sun/Moon from the site engine (Moon parallax-corrected). The ground path is only kilometres wide and elements age fast β€” refresh on the day. β˜€οΈ Solar work needs a certified full-aperture filter.
Companion pages: sky almanac Β· Moon tonight Β· dashboard.
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