On the evening of 29 June 2025, Mars and the Moon showed a close alignment. Skies were cleared enough to allow this photo at 9:48 PM local CDT. They appeared close together. But, the Moon was about 392,000 km and Mars 288,000,000 km from my location on Earth. Light traveled a bit more that 1 sec from the Moon to reach my camera. Light took nearly 16 minutes to travel from Mars to my camera.
The occultation was to begin just after 8 PM local time. The sky was clear but it was 15˚ F outside. The location in the sky was ideal relative to my house. I set the tripod with camera on the front porch and started recording images. The interval timer was set to trip the shutter every 2 minutes. After about 10 minutes, Mars was hidden behind the Moon. I brought the tripod and camera indoors and watched a TV program with my wife until 9 PM. Mars was to emerge from occultation at about 9:10. Just before then I set up the tripod and camera, started the interval timer, and went back inside. Every 3 or 4 minutes I went back outside briefly to re-point the camera since it wasn’t tracking the Moon.
The images turned out well. I used Pixelmator Pro to layer the images into this one composite. This image shows two locations of Mars at 8:01 and 8:03 prior to occultation on the left of the Moon. From the Earth point of view, the Moon was moving left as it crossed in front of Mars. When Mars started to emerge on the right side it was 9:11 with the final position at 9:19 PM local time. This image is best viewed on a larger screen.
.
My camera has no interval timer built in. I used this intervalometer from JJC. It is not expensive and does a good job.
Perhaps you remember a story from 20 years ago about Mars being as big as a full Moon. In case you don’t, here is what Wikipedia has to say about that:
“The Mars hoax was a hoax circulated by e-mail that began in 2003, that claimed that Mars would look as large as the full Moon to the naked eye on August 27, 2003. The hoax has since resurfaced each time before Mars is at its closest to Earth, about every 26 months.”
It is very obvious that Mars and the Moon are not even remotely the same size as shown in this enlarged part of an image.
The planets Jupiter and Mars were near each other in the early morning eastern skies during the first half of August. The morning of closest approach was 14 August. I used this conjunction opportunity to photograph the pair of planets each morning my skies were clear. I overlaid my photographs to show their progress. First, a few simulations for perspective on what was happening day to day as the planets moved. These images and videos are best viewed on a screen larger than a phone.
Here is a brief video of the orbits of the inner planets and Jupiter as seen from high above our solar system. The dates are in the top left corner. Notice the movements of Earth, Mars, and Jupiter have quite different speeds. Farther planets from the Sun move slower. The line of sight from Earth toward Jupiter aligns closely with Mars.
The Moon posed with Venus, Mars, Regulus and gamma in Leo last evening about 9:41 pm CDT. It was over exposed in order to see the dimmer planets and stars. A second photo zoomed in on the Moon and adjusted for exposure.
Weather in the middle of the US has been unusually good for astronomy for more than a week. But, not so good for those who grow things. The forecast discussion yesterday used the term ‘flash drought’ to describe the worsening conditions. No general relief is in sight. The clear skies and dry air are welcome conditions for those of us who look upward.
Back on May 23rd, the forecast called for several days of clear skies. I’d been watching Venus in the evening as it moved below the stars Pollux and Castor and as it moved closer to Mars to its upper left. Each night for a week at about 9:30 I aimed my camera at the scene and captured a series of 7 images from the 23rd to the 29th. I used image editing software to layer those images in order to show the movements of Venus and Mars as they moved toward the upper left. Each image layer was centered on Pollux and Castor as reference points in the sky. The Sun is well below the horizon out of view to the lower right of the image frames.
In the video below, Mars (orange) being far from the Sun is in a slower orbit. Its daily movements are smaller than those of Venus (grey). Venus is much closer to the Sun and in a faster orbit. It will eventually make the turn in its orbit and pass the Earth (blue). The date of greatest elongation angle of Venus from the Sun is June 4th this year. From our point of view on Earth, Venus will stop getting nearer to Mars and appear to reverse direction across the sky as it passes the Earth. I hope to capture some images as Venus reverses course and update this post. It will become a morning planet in the late summer and fall months.
How I See It 