Kap Gem is going to disappear tomorrow

On February 23rd the moon is going to occult one of the stars that forms the Gemini constellation. Kappa Geminorum is a mag 3.6 yellow giant star that represents the right shoulder of Pollux, one of the twins that form the constellation (the other being Castor).

click to enlarge

At 6:53 PM the star will disappear behind the dark limb of the moon and reappear at 7:49 PM on the illuminated side. Binoculars will provide a great view of the event. If you have a telescope you may be able to see another occultation. Kappa Geminorum is actually a binary star system, the mag 8.3 companion star is visible under high magnification.

Update

This is what the occultation looked like thru my 8″ Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope. The first segment shows the disappearance behind the dark limb. The nearly instantaneous disappearance is due to the very small angular diameter of a star and the much faster angular speed of the moon. The second segment shows the re-emergence while the last segment is a highly overexposed image showing the companion star at the 1 o’clock position.