The Moon at perihelion

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Moon feed


Objects: The Moon

The Moon's monthly orbit around the Earth will carry it to its closest point to the Sun – its perihelion – at a distance of 1.0139 AU from the Sun.

This happens at around the time when the Moon's orbit carries it between the Sun and the Earth, at around the same time that it passes new moon.

At the moment of the Moon's perihelion, the Earth will lie at a distance of 1.0164 AU from the Sun, and the Moon will lie at a distance of 1.0139 AU from the Sun.

This distance between the Earth and Moon will be 0.0025 AU (375,000 km).

The positions of the Sun and Moon in the sky will be:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Angular Size
The Moon 05h23m50s 25°53'N Taurus 31'47"
Sun (centre) 06h03m 23°25'N Gemini 31'28"

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

The sky on 21 Jun 2028

The sky on 21 June 2028
Sunrise
05:04
Sunset
20:24
Twilight ends
22:39
Twilight begins
02:49


Waning Crescent

0%

28 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 04:04 11:16 18:28
Venus 03:38 10:48 17:59
Moon 03:43 11:40 19:38
Mars 03:44 11:14 18:44
Jupiter 11:41 18:04 00:27
Saturn 02:20 09:08 15:55
All times shown in EDT.

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

15 Jun 2028  –  Moon at Last Quarter
22 Jun 2028  –  New Moon
29 Jun 2028  –  Moon at First Quarter
06 Jul 2028  –  Full Moon

Image credit

Simulated image courtesy of Tom Ruen.

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