During 2022, the geometry was just right to have the Moon eclipse a few planets - some multiple times. Uranus was occulted on the evening of 11Oct, 2022 for about 20 minutes (11:03 to 11:22 pm, MDT).

The challenge with imaging this occultation is that the Moon (with a surface brightness of -4.9 is nearly 175,000 times brighter than Uranus (surface brightness = 8.2). The human eye can accommodate this dynamic range, but an imaging camera cannot. The Moon would be completely saturated long before Uranus would ever be detected. The work-around was to precisely align each image using the Moon as a reference, then to compare consecutive images using the 'difference' layer setting in Photoshop (click the example to the right). This all but eliminated the Moon and its glare while highlighting the planet. After all of the images were assembled, an unsaturated Moon shot (taken during the occultation) was inserted into the pic.

The image shown above depicts the position of Uranus from about 10 minutes prior to the onset of the occultation to about 10 minutes after the occultation was finished. Images were taken each minute.

The field of view used to acquire the image is shown in the Imaging Details box in the inset to the right. The image at top is reduced in size (to roughly 15% scale). Clicking the image above will open up a larger, version.

Imaging Details
Imaging Dates	October 11, 2022
Imaging Location	Las Cruces, NM (32.31, -106.74)
Constellation	Aries
Imaging Telescope	Celestron NexStar C11 on G11 Mount
Imaging Camera	Modified Canon T2i (DSLR)
Imaging Filter(s)	n/a
Exposures	1" @ ISO 200
Guiding	50mm f/4 guide scope, 2x Barlow, Lodestar X2, PhD Guiding
Image Processing	As described in text.