Lunar occultation of Aldebaran

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Lunar Occultations feed


Objects: Aldebaran

The Moon will pass in front of Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri), creating a lunar occultation visible from countries and territories including Canada, the Contiguous United States, Greenland and Mexico 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 23:18 EST in the southern sky at an altitude of 62.9 degrees. Its reappearance will be visible at 00:39 EST at an altitude of 62.5 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).

[Unable to display this video because your browser does not support HTML5]
You can download this video in MP4 or OGG format.

A complete list of the countries and territories where the occultation will be visible is as follows:

Country Time span
(UTC)
Canada 03:42–06:10
The Contiguous United States 03:08–05:48
Greenland 05:00–06:02
Mexico 03:02–04:24
Algeria 05:56–06:54
France 05:42–06:45
Spain 05:45–06:52
Germany 05:42–06:36
Morocco 05:57–06:53
Great Britain 05:34–06:35
Norway 05:41–06:13
Sweden 05:44–06:17
Iceland 05:24–06:03
Mauritania 06:15–06:49
Italy 05:47–06:46
Ireland 05:35–06:32
Western Sahara 06:14–06:50
Portugal 05:47–06:51
Denmark 05:42–06:20
Netherlands 05:42–06:31
Switzerland 05:46–06:39
Poland 05:44–06:26
Belgium 05:42–06:33
Mali 06:21–06:48
Czechia 05:45–06:30
Northern Ireland 05:36–06:27
Austria 05:46–06:36
The Canary Islands 06:10–06:49
Corsica 05:49–06:44
Faroe Islands 05:34–06:08
Mallorca 05:52–06:49
Luxembourg 05:44–06:33
Shetland 05:37–06:11
The Portuguese Azores 05:34–06:44
Orkney 05:36–06:15
Menorca 05:52–06:48
Isle of Man 05:37–06:26
Ibiza 05:53–06:49
Andorra 05:49–06:45
Saint Pierre and Miquelon 04:47–06:06
Jersey 05:42–06:36
Guernsey 05:42–06:35
Melilla 05:58–06:52
Bermuda 04:54–05:23
Gibraltar 05:56–06:52
Liechtenstein 05:46–06:36
Monaco 05:49–06:42
Madeira 05:59–06:49
The Savage Islands 06:08–06:48
Isla de Alborán 05:57–06:52
Islas Chafarinas 05:58–06:52

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 100% illuminated. Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri) will disappear behind the illuminated side of the Moon and reappear from behind the unilluminated 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
05 Sep 2072 29 Oct 2072 Occultations of Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri) 23 Dec 2072 19 Jan 2073
05 Sep 2072 04 Nov 2072 Occultations 02 Dec 2072 19 Jan 2073

The sky on 23 Nov 2024

The sky on 23 November 2024
Sunrise
06:43
Sunset
16:15
Twilight ends
17:54
Twilight begins
05:03


Waning Crescent

41%

22 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 08:33 12:55 17:17
Venus 10:09 14:32 18:54
Moon 23:09 06:06 12:50
Mars 20:36 04:03 11:30
Jupiter 17:09 00:40 08:11
Saturn 12:58 18:29 23:59
All times shown in EST.

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.

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