Occultation

In this July 1997 still frame captured from video, the bright star Aldebaran has just reappeared on the dark limb of the waning crescent moon in this predawn occultation.

An occultation is an event that occurs when one object is hidden from the observer by another object that passes between them. The term is often used in astronomy, but can also refer to any situation in which an object in the foreground blocks from view (occults) an object in the background. In this general sense, occultation applies to the visual scene observed from low-flying aircraft (or computer-generated imagery) when foreground objects obscure distant objects dynamically, as the scene changes over time.

If the closer body does not entirely conceal the farther one, the event is called a transit. Both transit and occultation may be referred to generally as occlusion; and if a shadow is cast onto the observer, it is called an eclipse.

The symbol for an occultation, and especially a solar eclipse, is (U+1F775 🝵).^{[not verified in body]}