Occultations of planets and stars by the Moon may also be recommended to the notice of the owners of small telescopes as events which are constantly happening and which may be readily observed. The Moon being rapidly in motion it will happen in point of fact that stars are occulted by it, one may say every day, but of course the Moon’s light entirely blots out the smaller stars and only those as large as, say, about the 5th magnitude are as a rule worth trying to see in this connection. A table of the occultations of such stars, copied from the _Nautical Almanac_, will be found in such almanacs as _Whitaker’s_ and the _British_. If such a table is consulted it will be found that never does a lunation pass without a few stars being noted as undergoing occultation, and now and then a planet. An occultation of a planet is obviously still more interesting than that of a star. [Illustration: FIG. 17-18.—OCCULTATION OF JUPITER, AUG. 7, 1889 (_Emersion_).] From the epoch of New to Full Moon the Moon moves with its dark edge foremost from the epoch of Full to New with its illuminated edge foremost. During therefore the first half of a lunation the objects occulted disappear at the dark edge and reappear at the illuminated edge, during the second half of a lunation things are _vice versâ_. The most interesting time for watching occultations is with a young Moon no more than, say, from 2 to 6 days old, because under such circumstances the star occulted is suddenly extinguished at a point in the sky where there seems nothing to interfere with it. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 169: For details as to these matters, see my _Handbook of Astronomy_, 4th ed., vol. i. pp. 186-196.] APPENDIX. THE TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE SUN OF MAY 28, 1900. This Appendix deals solely with geographical and transport matters as to which accurate information is not easily obtainable, the European _locus in quo_ of the Eclipse being in the benighted and somewhat untravelled countries of Portugal and Spain. The intending Eclipse excursionist must first make his choice between (practically) a journey of all sea or of all land. The several sea routes are one and all very much cheaper than any possible land journey, and almost as quick in point of time, with the minimum amount of personal knocking about. But (some persons will say) sea is sea, and so it is. On the other hand the land journey is exceedingly expensive; and beyond France the trains are very incommodious as regards hours, speed, and connections. Moreover, there being more frontiers than one to cross, there are extra opportunities for Custom-house squabbles, and Spain especially is famous for this sort of thing.