Lunar occultation of Uranus

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Lunar Occultations feed


Objects: Uranus

The Moon will pass in front of Uranus, creating a lunar occultation visible from countries and territories including the Contiguous United States, Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela 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 Uranus behind the Moon at 01:18 EDT in the south-western sky at an altitude of 18.4 degrees. Its reappearance will be visible at 01:40 EDT at an altitude of 16.3 degrees.

The map below shows the visibility of the occultation across the world. Separate contours show where the disappearance of Uranus 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 Uranus 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 Uranus.

[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)
The Contiguous United States 03:31–05:59
Mexico 03:23–05:49
Colombia 04:38–06:19
Venezuela 05:03–06:24
Ecuador 04:22–05:51
Canada 05:22–05:55
Cuba 04:32–06:15
Nicaragua 04:22–06:00
Honduras 04:17–05:59
Guatemala 04:09–05:47
Panama 04:36–06:07
Guyana 05:42–06:19
Costa Rica 04:27–05:59
Dominican Republic 05:02–06:24
Haiti 04:56–06:20
Bahamas 04:49–06:17
Belize 04:18–05:48
El Salvador 04:15–05:49
Jamaica 04:47–06:13
Puerto Rico 05:12–06:27
Trinidad and Tobago 05:31–06:26
Peru 05:22–05:46
Brazil 05:37–06:03
Guadeloupe 05:24–06:30
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 05:29–06:28
Turks and Caicos Islands 05:02–06:20
Barbados 05:32–06:29
British Virgin Islands 05:17–06:29
Cayman Islands 04:39–06:02
Martinique 05:27–06:30
Curacao 05:11–06:22
Saint Kitts and Nevis 05:21–06:30
Saint Lucia 05:27–06:29
U.S. Virgin Islands 05:16–06:28
Antigua and Barbuda 05:23–06:31
Dominica 05:25–06:30
Anguilla 05:20–06:30
Saint Pierre and Miquelon 05:27–05:59
Bonaire, Saint Eustatius and Saba 05:14–06:30
Grenada 05:29–06:27
Bermuda 05:15–06:18
Montserrat 05:22–06:30
Aruba 05:08–06:21
Sint Maarten 05:20–06:30
Saint Barthelemy 05:20–06:30
Saint Martin 05:20–06:30
Clipperton Island 03:31–04:49
Navassa Island 04:54–06:15

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 97% illuminated. Uranus will disappear behind the unilluminated side of the Moon and reappear from behind the illuminated side of the Moon.

The position of Uranus at the moment of the occultation will be as follows:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Uranus 18h48m10s 23°21'S Sagittarius 5.6 0'03"

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
21 Apr 2068 28 Jun 2075 Occultations of Uranus 22 Aug 2075 11 Apr 2083
24 Jul 2075 24 Jul 2075 Occultations 20 Aug 2075 06 Sep 2075

The sky on 22 Nov 2024

The sky on 22 November 2024
Sunrise
06:41
Sunset
16:16
Twilight ends
17:55
Twilight begins
05:02


Waning Crescent

48%

21 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 08:36 12:57 17:19
Venus 10:09 14:31 18:53
Moon 22:03 05:23 12:29
Mars 20:40 04:06 11:33
Jupiter 17:14 00:45 08:16
Saturn 13:02 18:32 00:03
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.

Related news

04 Jul 2075  –  Uranus at opposition
19 Sep 2075  –  Uranus ends retrograde motion
22 Apr 2076  –  Uranus enters retrograde motion
08 Jul 2076  –  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.

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