The Moon and Neptune will make a close approach, passing within a mere 19.5 arcminutes of each other. From some parts of the world, the Moon will pass in front of Neptune, creating a lunar occultation. The Moon will be 16 days old.
From Columbus , the pair will be visible in the morning sky, becoming accessible around 21:29, when they reach an altitude of 21° above your eastern horizon. They will then reach their highest point in the sky at 02:32, 67° above your southern horizon. They will be lost to dawn twilight around 06:50, 30° above your western horizon.
The Moon will be at mag -12.7; and Neptune will be at mag 7.8. Both objects will lie in the constellation Taurus.
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 Neptune 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 | 03h39m20s | 18°01'N | Taurus | -12.7 | 32'20"3 |
| Neptune | 03h39m30s | 17°42'N | Taurus | 7.8 | 2"3 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 160° from the Sun, which is in Virgo at this time of year.
The sky on 3 Jul 2024
| The sky on 3 July 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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5% 27 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.
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| 03 Sep 2051 | – Neptune 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.