The Moon and Uranus will make a close approach, passing within a mere 35.3 arcminutes of each other. From some parts of the world, the Moon will pass in front of Uranus, creating a lunar occultation. The Moon will be 18 days old.
From Cambridge , the pair will be visible in the morning sky, becoming accessible around 01:02, when they reach an altitude of 20° above your south-eastern horizon. They will then reach their highest point in the sky at 02:45, 25° above your southern horizon. They will be lost to dawn twilight around 03:46, 23° above your southern horizon.
The Moon will be at mag -12.5; and Uranus will be at mag 5.5. Both objects will lie in the constellation Ophiuchus.
They will be a little too widely separated to fit comfortably within the field of view of a telescope, but will be visible through a pair of binoculars.
A graph of the angular separation between the Moon and Uranus 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 | 16h47m10s | 22°56'S | Ophiuchus | -12.5 | 31'35"5 |
| Uranus | 16h47m50s | 22°21'S | Ophiuchus | 5.5 | 3"8 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 136° from the Sun, which is in Aries at this time of year.
The sky on 18 May 2024
| The sky on 18 May 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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81% 10 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
| 18 Mar 1984 | – Uranus enters retrograde motion |
| 01 Jun 1984 | – Uranus at opposition |
| 18 Aug 1984 | – Uranus ends retrograde motion |
| 22 Mar 1985 | – Uranus 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.