4 ms·

I don't understand the definition of occultation in the article, if there are only "several" occultations of stars per month. The moon is blocking several dozen

• dmurray 5y ago
  No. The moon takes up about 1/100,000 of the night sky [0]. In excellent conditions you can see maybe 5,000 stars [1]. So on average the moon is blocking 0.05 of them. It's surprising how small the moon is in the sky, given its prominence, and how few stars there are even on the blackest night. Now correct for the fact that you won't have perfect viewing conditions everywhere in your survey area, and that you can make out far fewer stars when the moon is full, and a few opportunities a month starts to look reasonable. [0] https://www.quora.com/How-much-of-the-full-night-sky-does-the-full-moon-occupy https://www.quora.com/How-much-of-the-full-night-sky-does-th... [1] https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-blogs/how-many-stars-night-sky-09172014/ https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-blogs/how-many-stars-n...