Astrophoto: Moon Occults Triple Star System Pi Sagitaurii by Efrain Morales Rivera

By Nancy Atkinson - August 19, 2011 at 11:06 PM UTC | Observing
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On August 10, the Moon passed in front of the triple star system, Pi Sagitaurii star system. The even was captured by Efrain Morales Rivera from the Jaicoa Observatory in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. "An interesting event, capturing this triple star system being occulted by the Moon and 1 hour and 26 minutes later re-appearing on the bright side of the moon," Rivera wrote to tell us.

He even created an animation of the stars "winking out," as seen below.

[caption id="attachment_88332" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Closeup animation of Moon occulting the Pi Sagitaurii star system, Credit: Efrain Morales Rivera, Jaicoa Observatory"]

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See more images from Rivera at the

Jaicoa Observatory website.

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Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com