The Moon and Neptune will make a close approach, passing within a mere 10.4 arcminutes of each other. From some parts of the world, the Moon will pass in front of Neptune, creating a lunar occultation. The Moon will be 13 days old.
From Fairfield , the pair will be visible in the evening sky, becoming accessible around 21:31 (EDT), 31° above your south-eastern horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. They will then reach their highest point in the sky at 23:16, 37° above your southern horizon. They will continue to be observable until around 02:22, when they sink below 21° above your south-western horizon.
The Moon will be at mag -12.7; and Neptune will be at mag 7.9. Both objects will lie in the constellation Virgo.
They will be close enough to fit within the field of view of a telescope, but will also be visible through a pair of binoculars.
A graph of the angular separation between the Moon and Neptune around the time of closest approach is available here.
The positions of the pair at the moment of closest approach will be as follows:
| Object | Right Ascension | Declination | Constellation | Magnitude | Angular Size |
| The Moon | 14h15m30s | 11°28'S | Virgo | -12.7 | 33'16"5 |
| Neptune | 14h15m20s | 11°38'S | Virgo | 7.9 | 2"3 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 155° from the Sun, which is in Taurus at this time of year.
The sky on 18 Jul 2024
| The sky on 18 July 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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90% 13 days old |
All times shown in EDT.
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Source
The circumstances of this event were computed using the DE430 planetary ephemeris published by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
This event was automatically generated by searching the ephemeris for planetary alignments which are of interest to amateur astronomers, and the text above was generated based on an estimate of your location.
Related news
| 26 Apr 1959 | – Neptune at opposition |
| 16 Jul 1959 | – Neptune ends retrograde motion |
| 09 Feb 1960 | – Neptune enters retrograde motion |
| 27 Apr 1960 | – Neptune at opposition |
Image credit
The Moon in conjunction with Venus and Jupiter, with the Very Large Telescope in the foreground. Image © Y. Beletsky, ESO, 2009.