SDO Lunar Transit, October 16, 2020

Just two weeks ago the Full Moon and Mars had a bright conjunction in the night sky. Tomorrow the New Moon will glide between SDO and the Sun for a 47 minute lunar transit. Here's the SDO FOT movie of the transit.

The transit starts at 1906 UTC (3:06 pm ET) and ends at 1953 UTC (3:53 pm ET), so it's at a perfect time for watching in the US. The Moon will cover at most about 44% of the solar disk. More important to SDO, it will cover two of the fine-guidance sensors (the red squares in the movie). This means our view of the Sun may jitter a bit during the transit, but SDO will recover soon after the Moon moves off the disk.
Enjoy the transit, and keep watching the planets Mars, Venus, and Jupiter as they move across the evening sky.

SDO Plans from October 2020 through February 2021

The SDO Quarterly LongSet Predicts have been delivered. We have two lunar transits in the next three months. The highlights are listed below:

• 16 Oct 2020 @ 1906 to 1953z (10/16 @ 1506 to 1553L) – LunTran_2020290_2dc_44pshdw
• 09 Dec 2020 @ 1944z (12/09 @ 1444L) – MM #39
• 13 Jan 2021 @ 0556 to 0625z (01/13 @ 0056 to 0125L) – LunTran_2021013_2dc_37pshdw
• 24 Jan 2021 @ 0452z (01/24 @ 2352L) – Handover Season Starts with first Handover
• 28 Jan 2021 @ 0724z (01/28 @ 0224L) – Eclipse Season Starts
• 10 Feb 2021 @ TBD (02/10 @ TBD) – SK #22 (Tentative)
• 21 Feb 2021 @ 0711z (02/21 @ 0211L) – Eclipse Season Ends
• 15 Mar 2021 @ 0314z (03/15 @ 2314L) – Handover Season Ends as last handover completes
• 21 Apr 2021 @ TBD (04/21 @ TBD) – MM #40

Dates and times in parentheses are GSFC Local time. Timings of maneuvers are tentative and may change.

Calibration Maneuvers Today

SDO will execute the EVE Field of View (FOV) calibration maneuver starting at 1315 UTC (9:15 am ET). That will be followed by the HMI/AIA Flatfield calibration maneuver starting at 1630 UTC (2:30 pm ET). During these maneuvers the SDO science data may be missing or blurry.