The Moon and Uranus will make a close approach, passing within a mere 17.9 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 20 days old.
From Fairfield , the pair will be visible in the morning sky, becoming accessible around 01:01, when they reach an altitude of 20° above your south-eastern horizon. They will then reach their highest point in the sky at 04:05, 35° above your southern horizon. They will be lost to dawn twilight around 05:29, 31° above your south-western horizon.
The Moon will be at mag -12.2; and Uranus will be at mag 5.4. Both objects will lie in the constellation Virgo.
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 | 14h20m10s | 13°46'S | Virgo | -12.2 | 29'35"4 |
| Uranus | 14h20m40s | 13°29'S | Virgo | 5.4 | 3"9 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 115° from the Sun, which is in Aquarius at this time of year.
The sky on 23 Jul 2024
| The sky on 23 July 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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90% 18 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.
Related news
| 11 Feb 2060 | – Uranus enters retrograde motion |
| 25 Apr 2060 | – Uranus at opposition |
| 11 Jul 2060 | – Uranus ends retrograde motion |
| 15 Feb 2061 | – 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.