The Moon and Uranus will make a close approach, passing within a mere 16.7 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 17 days old.
From Columbus , the pair will be visible in the morning sky, becoming accessible around 23:38, when they reach an altitude of 21° above your south-eastern horizon. They will then reach their highest point in the sky at 03:14, 42° above your southern horizon. They will be lost to dawn twilight around 05:26, 33° above your south-western horizon.
The Moon will be at mag -12.7; and Uranus will be at mag 5.8. Both objects will lie in the constellation Aquarius.
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 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 | 23h01m20s | 7°26'S | Aquarius | -12.7 | 33'10"8 |
| Uranus | 23h00m50s | 7°11'S | Aquarius | 5.8 | 3"6 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 154° from the Sun, which is in Leo at this time of year.
The sky on 18 Apr 2025
| The sky on 18 April 2025 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
68% 20 days old |
All times shown in EDT.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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
| 19 Jun 2006 | – Uranus enters retrograde motion |
| 05 Sep 2006 | – Uranus at opposition |
| 20 Nov 2006 | – Uranus ends retrograde motion |
| 23 Jun 2007 | – 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.