| Start: | Mon, 12 Dec 2016 at 21:34 EST (02:34 UTC) |
| End: | Tue, 13 Dec 2016 at 01:24 EST (06:24 UTC) |
2,904 days ago
Dominic Ford, Editor
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the Lunar Occultations
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The Moon will pass in front of Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri), creating a lunar occultation visible from countries and territories including the Contiguous United States, Canada, Mexico and Spain 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.
The occultation will be visible from Cambridge. It will begin with the disappearance of Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri) behind the Moon at 23:17 EST in the southern sky at an altitude of 63.5 degrees. Its reappearance will be visible at 00:33 EST at an altitude of 56.2 degrees.
The map below shows the visibility of the occultation across the world. Separate contours show where the disappearance of Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri) 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 Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri) 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 Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri).
A complete list of the countries and territories where the occultation will be visible is as follows:
| Country | Time span (UTC) |
| The Contiguous United States | 02:59–05:38 |
| Canada | 03:32–05:53 |
| Mexico | 02:54–04:23 |
| Spain | 05:23–06:20 |
| Greenland | 04:54–05:34 |
| Great Britain | 05:21–05:59 |
| France | 05:22–06:10 |
| Morocco | 05:29–06:25 |
| Western Sahara | 05:38–06:25 |
| Ireland | 05:19–05:57 |
| Portugal | 05:24–06:20 |
| Mauritania | 05:41–06:25 |
| Northern Ireland | 05:20–05:49 |
| The Canary Islands | 05:36–06:25 |
| Algeria | 05:35–06:25 |
| The Portuguese Azores | 05:15–06:19 |
| Belgium | 05:24–05:52 |
| Isle of Man | 05:22–05:48 |
| Saint Pierre and Miquelon | 04:41–05:50 |
| Jersey | 05:22–05:59 |
| Guernsey | 05:22–05:59 |
| Bermuda | 04:43–05:33 |
| Gibraltar | 05:28–06:20 |
| Netherlands | 05:24–05:51 |
| Madeira | 05:30–06:23 |
| The Savage Islands | 05:35–06:24 |
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.
At the time of the occultation, the Moon will be 0 days past new moon and will be 99% illuminated. Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri) will disappear behind the unilluminated side of the Moon and reappear from behind the illuminated side of the Moon.
The position of Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri) at the moment of the occultation will be as follows:
| Object | Right Ascension | Declination | Constellation | Magnitude | Angular Size |
| Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri) | 04h35m50s | 16°30'N | Taurus | 1.0 | 0'00" |
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 | |
| 19 Oct 2016 | 15 Nov 2016 | Occultations of Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri) | 09 Jan 2017 | 05 Mar 2017 |
| 06 Dec 2016 | 06 Dec 2016 | Occultations | 18 Dec 2016 | 05 Mar 2017 |
The sky on 12 Dec 2016
| The sky on 12 December 2016 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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99% 13 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.
Image credit
The Moon in conjunction with Venus and Jupiter, with the Very Large Telescope in the foreground. Image © Y. Beletsky, ESO, 2009.