Lunar occultation of Venus

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Lunar Occultations feed


Objects: Venus

The Moon will pass in front of Venus, creating a lunar occultation visible from Asia and 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 Fairfield.

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

[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)
Sudan 06:55–08:09
China 09:48–11:08
Ethiopia 06:57–08:28
Saudi Arabia 07:09–08:19
Indonesia 09:15–11:01
Democratic Republic of the Congo 06:59–07:59
Egypt 07:02–08:03
Somalia 07:02–08:33
India 08:19–10:45
Tanzania 07:06–08:04
Myanmar 09:22–10:55
Kenya 06:59–08:17
Thailand 09:24–11:02
Yemen 07:06–08:36
Central African Republic 06:56–07:56
Philippines 10:03–11:13
Vietnam 09:39–11:07
Malaysia 09:27–11:06
Chad 06:56–08:00
Uganda 06:59–08:05
Laos 09:42–11:05
Cambodia 09:38–11:05
Oman 07:32–08:26
Eritrea 07:00–08:17
Sri Lanka 08:30–10:13
Taiwan 10:04–11:12
Libya 07:06–08:00
Burundi 07:11–07:49
Rwanda 07:07–07:52
Djibouti 07:02–08:18
Madagascar 07:37–08:12
Bangladesh 09:45–10:15
Maldives 08:00–09:47
Brunei 10:01–11:03
Japan 10:07–11:11
Hong Kong 10:00–11:06
Seychelles 07:20–08:46
Singapore 09:38–10:54
British Indian Ocean Territory 07:57–09:40
Paracel Islands 09:55–11:09
Cocos Islands 09:45–10:00
Macao 09:59–11:05
Spratly Islands 09:58–11:10

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 Venus at the moment of the occultation will be as follows:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Venus 19h32m00s 23°39'S Sagittarius -4.0 0'12"

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
13 Jan 2075 12 Feb 2075 Occultations of Venus 27 Jun 2076 23 May 2077
06 Sep 2075 12 Nov 2075 Occultations 04 Jan 2076 19 May 2076

The sky on 22 Nov 2024

The sky on 22 November 2024
Sunrise
06:47
Sunset
16:28
Twilight ends
18:05
Twilight begins
05:10


Waning Crescent

44%

21 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 08:40 13:06 17:32
Venus 10:13 14:39 19:06
Moon 22:16 05:32 12:36
Mars 20:52 04:15 11:38
Jupiter 17:26 00:53 08:20
Saturn 13:09 18:41 00:13
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

19 Dec 2074  –  Venus at greatest elongation west
07 Mar 2076  –  Venus at greatest elongation east
13 Mar 2076  –  Venus at highest altitude in evening sky
27 Jul 2076  –  Venus at greatest elongation west

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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