The Moon and Uranus will make a close approach, passing within a mere 13.0 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 12 days old.
From Cambridge , the pair will become visible at around 21:45 (EDT), 35° above your southern horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. They will then sink towards the horizon, setting at 02:51.
The Moon will be at mag -12.3; 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 | 14h06m10s | 12°29'S | Virgo | -12.3 | 29'34"2 |
| Uranus | 14h06m30s | 12°17'S | Virgo | 5.4 | 3"9 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 134° from the Sun, which is in Taurus at this time of year.
The sky on 3 Jul 2024
| The sky on 3 July 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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2% 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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| 25 Apr 2060 | – Uranus at opposition |
| 11 Jul 2060 | – Uranus ends retrograde motion |
| 15 Feb 2061 | – Uranus enters retrograde motion |
| 30 Apr 2061 | – Uranus at opposition |
Image credit
The Moon in conjunction with Venus and Jupiter, with the Very Large Telescope in the foreground. Image © Y. Beletsky, ESO, 2009.