The Moon and Saturn will share the same right ascension, with the Moon passing 5'46" to the north of Saturn. The Moon will be 18 days old.
At around the same time, the two objects will also make a close approach, technically called an appulse.
From Cambridge , the pair will be visible in the morning sky, becoming accessible around 21:28, when they reach an altitude of 11° above your eastern horizon. They will then reach their highest point in the sky at 02:40, 51° above your southern horizon. They will be lost to dawn twilight around 06:19, 27° above your south-western horizon.
The Moon will be at mag -12.4, and Saturn at mag 0.6, both in the constellation Virgo.
The pair will be close enough to fit within the field of view of a telescope, but will also be visible to the naked eye or through a pair of binoculars.
A graph of the angular separation between the Moon and Saturn around the time of closest approach is available here.
The positions of the two objects at the moment of conjunction will be as follows:
| Object | Right Ascension | Declination | Constellation | Magnitude | Angular Size |
| The Moon | 11h51m00s | 3°35'N | Virgo | -12.4 | 29'26"8 |
| Saturn | 11h51m00s | 3°29'N | Virgo | 0.6 | 19"1 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 138° from the Sun, which is in Capricornus at this time of year.
The sky on 23 Nov 2024
| The sky on 23 November 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
40% 22 days old |
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.
Related news
| 06 Jan 1980 | – Saturn enters retrograde motion |
| 02 Mar 1980 | – Equinox on Saturn |
| 12 Mar 1980 | – Saturn ring plane crossing |
| 13 Mar 1980 | – Saturn 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.