On the 26th of January the Moon occulted Jupiter as seen from the UK. Over a narrow band of Northern England the occultation was grazing. As expected most places were clouded out but Mike Tyrrell and I were lucky enough to get almost a complete view of the event through a well timed hole in the clouds. The observations were made through his telescope at Northwich (53°37’N 2°31’W) which was at the southern edge of the graze zone so Jupiter was never more than about 30% covered by the moon. In the pictures the large crater passing above Jupiter is Bailly - in fact the largest crater visible from Earth at some 185 miles across and 13,000ft depth. Also visible are Kircher, Bettinus and Zucchius. Because the moon’s libration was favourable on this occasion (tipped towards us at some 4 or 5° ) the silhouetted mountains passing in front of Jupiter's disc are in fact on the far side! These mountains are called the Doerfel Mountains with heights up to around 20,000ft (comparable to the Himalayas on Earth) and are one of the highest ranges on the Moon. Io (at left) and Ganymede are also visible in the second image.

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