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Calculator for occultation of celestial objects by the moon or planetary bodies

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JohannesBuchner/lunar-occulation-calculator

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Lunar & Planetary Occultation Calculator

Tests when a background target (e.g. a galaxy or star) could be occulted by the moon or a planet.

Introduction

In astronomy, lunar occultations can be useful because timing can be more accurate than imaging resolution.

Occultations block some part of the target object and allow one to study the remainder.

For example, occultations of a star by Pluto can be used to measure the surface of Pluto. Or, occultations of a distant galaxy by the moon can be used to measure the size of the nucleus of the galaxy.

I wanted to see if NuSTAR AGN observations can take advantage of an occultation.

Method

Provided a target list, lunar-filter-rough.py and planet-filter-rough.py produce candidate event files.

lunar-filter.py and planet-filter.py check if these candidates can be viable.

Results

At least until 2020, no Swift/BAT AGN will be occulted by the moon or a planet.

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Calculator for occultation of celestial objects by the moon or planetary bodies

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