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 Asia, Europe, western Russia and Northern Africa. 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.

Unfortunately the occultation will not be visible from Cambridge.

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)
Kazakhstan 16:50–18:08
Russia 16:27–18:01
Iran 16:45–18:23
China 17:17–18:22
Saudi Arabia 16:39–18:16
India 17:19–18:26
Libya 15:38–17:36
Egypt 16:10–17:54
Pakistan 17:16–18:26
Turkey 16:10–18:05
Ukraine 16:12–17:44
Afghanistan 17:10–18:23
Turkmenistan 16:56–18:17
Uzbekistan 17:00–18:15
Iraq 16:41–18:13
Poland 16:08–17:16
Romania 16:06–17:36
Belarus 16:22–17:21
Oman 17:18–18:20
Kyrgyzstan 17:14–18:11
Syria 16:32–18:03
Greece 15:57–17:43
Tajikistan 17:12–18:15
Bulgaria 16:05–17:38
Italy 15:41–17:23
Hungary 16:00–17:20
Serbia 16:00–17:28
Azerbaijan 16:46–18:06
Jordan 16:35–18:01
Georgia 16:38–18:01
Nepal 17:24–18:23
Croatia 15:52–17:20
United Arab Emirates 17:18–18:19
Lithuania 16:29–17:04
Slovakia 16:04–17:17
Bosnia and Herzegovina 15:56–17:21
Czechia 16:02–17:09
Austria 15:56–17:10
Moldova 16:19–17:33
Armenia 16:44–18:04
Macedonia 16:00–17:30
Albania 15:57–17:27
Sudan 17:04–17:39
Slovenia 15:54–17:11
Israel 16:33–17:56
Montenegro 15:57–17:24
Kuwait 17:00–18:12
Qatar 17:13–18:15
Cyprus 16:25–17:53
Lebanon 16:33–17:57
Palestinian Territory 16:34–17:55
Latvia 16:44–16:54
Bahrain 17:12–18:14
Malta 15:42–17:15
Yemen 17:47–17:55
RAF Akrotiri 16:26–17:53

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.

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
19 Jan 2073 16 Feb 2073 Occultations of Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri) 11 Apr 2073 11 Apr 2073
19 Jan 2073 06 Mar 2073 Occultations 21 Mar 2073 11 Apr 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

42%

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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