The Moon and Neptune will make a close approach, passing within a mere 25.8 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 20 days old.
From Cambridge , the pair will be visible in the dawn sky, rising at 23:30 (EST) and reaching an altitude of 25° above the southern horizon before fading from view as dawn breaks at around 03:56.
The Moon will be at mag -12.2; and Neptune will be at mag 7.9. Both objects will lie in the constellation Sagittarius.
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 | 17h48m10s | 21°41'S | Sagittarius | -12.2 | 29'30"8 |
| Neptune | 17h48m00s | 22°06'S | Sagittarius | 7.9 | 2"2 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 116° from the Sun, which is in Pisces at this time of year.
The sky on 23 Nov 2024
| The sky on 23 November 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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42% 22 days old |
All times shown in EST.
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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
| 29 Mar 1982 | – Neptune enters retrograde motion |
| 17 Jun 1982 | – Neptune at opposition |
| 05 Sep 1982 | – Neptune ends retrograde motion |
| 31 Mar 1983 | – Neptune enters retrograde motion |
Image credit
The Moon in conjunction with Venus and Jupiter, with the Very Large Telescope in the foreground. Image © Y. Beletsky, ESO, 2009.