Lunar occultation of Delta Scorpii

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Lunar Occultations feed


Objects: Dschubba

The Moon will pass in front of Delta Scorpii (Dschubba), creating a lunar occultation visible from the Americas. Although the occultation will only be visible across part of the world – because the Moon is so close to the Earth that its position in the sky varies by as much as two degrees across the world – a close conjunction between the pair will be more widely visible.

Unfortunately the occultation will not be visible from Cambridge, though it will be visible from eastern parts of the Contiguous United States.

The map below shows the visibility of the occultation across the world. Separate contours show where the disappearance of Delta Scorpii (Dschubba) is visible (shown in red), and where its reappearance is visible (shown in blue). Solid contours show where each event is likely to be visible through binoculars at a reasonable altitude in the sky. Dotted contours indicate where each event occurs above the horizon, but may not be visible due to the sky being too bright or the Moon being very close to the horizon.

Outside the contours, the Moon will not pass in front of Delta Scorpii (Dschubba) at any time, or is below the horizon at the time of the occultation. However, a close conjunction between the pair will be visible across much of the world.

The map can be downloaded in PNG , PDF or SVG format. A KMZ file , is also available, which can be opened in Google Earth to provide a higher resolution map.

A complete list of the countries and territories where the occultation will be visible is as follows:

Country Time span
(UTC)
Brazil 07:52–09:52
Colombia 07:40–08:57
Venezuela 07:41–09:09
The Contiguous United States 07:34–08:35
Mexico 07:34–08:33
Guyana 07:50–09:20
Suriname 07:55–09:24
Cuba 07:34–08:41
Nicaragua 07:38–08:34
Honduras 07:37–08:34
Guatemala 07:37–08:30
Panama 07:44–08:39
French Guiana 08:00–09:28
Peru 08:09–08:44
Costa Rica 07:45–08:31
Dominican Republic 07:37–08:47
Haiti 07:36–08:44
Bahamas 07:35–08:41
Belize 07:36–08:31
El Salvador 07:42–08:29
Ecuador 08:10–08:30
Jamaica 07:35–08:41
Puerto Rico 07:41–08:49
Trinidad and Tobago 07:47–09:03
Guadeloupe 07:46–08:55
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 07:47–09:00
Turks and Caicos Islands 07:38–08:42
Barbados 07:49–09:01
British Virgin Islands 07:43–08:49
Cayman Islands 07:35–08:37
Martinique 07:47–08:58
Curacao 07:41–08:51
Saint Kitts and Nevis 07:45–08:53
Saint Lucia 07:47–08:59
U.S. Virgin Islands 07:43–08:50
Antigua and Barbuda 07:46–08:53
Dominica 07:46–08:56
Anguilla 07:45–08:51
Bonaire, Saint Eustatius and Saba 07:42–08:52
Grenada 07:47–09:00
Montserrat 07:46–08:53
Aruba 07:40–08:49
Sint Maarten 07:45–08:51
Saint Barthelemy 07:45–08:51
Saint Martin 07:45–08:51
Navassa Island 07:36–08:41

Lunar occultations are only ever visible from a small fraction of the Earth's surface. Since the Moon is much closer to the Earth than other celestial objects, its exact position in the sky differs depending on your exact location on Earth due to its large parallax. The position of the Moon as seen from two points on opposite sides of the Earth varies by up to two degrees, or four times the diameter of the full moon.

This means that if the Moon is aligned to pass in front of a particular object for an observer on one side of the Earth, it will appear up to two degrees away from that object on the other side of the Earth.

The position of Delta Scorpii (Dschubba) at the moment of the occultation will be as follows:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Delta Scorpii (Dschubba) 16h00m20s 22°37'S Scorpius 2.3 0'00"

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

Next/previous occultations

« Previous Next »
Visible from the Contiguous United States Worldwide Worldwide Visible from the Contiguous United States
17 Oct 1966 07 Jan 1967 Occultations of Delta Scorpii (Dschubba) 02 Mar 1967 10 Apr 1974
17 Oct 1966 31 Jan 1967 Occultations 06 Feb 1967 17 Oct 1967

The sky on 22 Nov 2024

The sky on 22 November 2024
Sunrise
06:41
Sunset
16:16
Twilight ends
17:55
Twilight begins
05:02


Waning Crescent

45%

21 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 08:36 12:57 17:19
Venus 10:09 14:31 18:53
Moon 22:03 05:23 12:29
Mars 20:40 04:06 11:33
Jupiter 17:14 00:45 08:16
Saturn 13:02 18:32 00:03
All times shown in EST.

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.

Image credit

The Moon in conjunction with Venus and Jupiter, with the Very Large Telescope in the foreground. Image © Y. Beletsky, ESO, 2009.

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