Lunar occultation of Neptune

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Lunar Occultations feed


Objects: Neptune

The Moon will pass in front of Neptune, creating a lunar occultation visible from countries and territories including China, eastern Russia, Mongolia and Myanmar amongst others. 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 Fairfield.

The map below shows the visibility of the occultation across the world. Separate contours show where the disappearance of Neptune 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 Neptune 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.

The animation below shows the path of the occultation across the Earth's globe. The red circle shows where the Moon appears in front of Neptune.

[Unable to display this video because your browser does not support HTML5]
You can download this video in MP4 or OGG format.

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

Country Time span
(UTC)
China 12:39–15:35
Russia 13:35–15:53
Mongolia 13:10–15:10
Myanmar 12:39–14:23
Japan 13:55–15:51
Thailand 12:48–14:26
Vietnam 12:57–14:41
India 12:37–14:20
Laos 12:52–14:31
Cambodia 13:02–14:25
North Korea 13:59–15:34
Philippines 13:49–15:14
South Korea 13:59–15:36
Bangladesh 12:36–14:04
Taiwan 13:42–15:19
Bhutan 12:38–14:06
Hong Kong 13:25–15:00
Paracel Islands 13:23–14:45
Macao 13:24–14:57
Spratly Islands 13:46–14:29

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 Neptune at the moment of the occultation will be as follows:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Neptune 20h17m40s 19°23'S Capricornus 7.9 0'02"

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
28 Jul 1999 28 Jul 1999 Occultations of Neptune 20 Sep 1999 23 Jun 2008
29 Jul 1999 06 Aug 1999 Occultations 02 Sep 1999 30 Sep 1999

The sky on 22 Nov 2024

The sky on 22 November 2024
Sunrise
06:47
Sunset
16:28
Twilight ends
18:05
Twilight begins
05:10


Waning Gibbous

52%

21 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 08:40 13:06 17:32
Venus 10:13 14:39 19:06
Moon 22:16 05:32 12:36
Mars 20:52 04:15 11:38
Jupiter 17:26 00:53 08:20
Saturn 13:09 18:41 00:13
All times shown in EST.

Warning

Never attempt to point a pair of binoculars or a telescope at an object close to the Sun. Doing so may result in immediate and permanent blindness.

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 Jul 1999  –  Neptune at opposition
13 Oct 1999  –  Neptune ends retrograde motion
08 May 2000  –  Neptune enters retrograde motion
27 Jul 2000  –  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.

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