Lunar occultation of Delta Scorpii

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Lunar Occultations feed


Objects: Dschubba

The Moon will pass in front of Delta Scorpii (Dschubba), creating a lunar occultation visible from Africa, Western Asia and Southern Europe. 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 Delta Scorpii (Dschubba) 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 Delta Scorpii (Dschubba) 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.

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

Country Time span
(UTC)
Sudan 23:30–01:19
Libya 23:25–00:46
Chad 23:26–00:47
Niger 23:26–00:36
Ethiopia 23:43–01:42
Egypt 23:31–00:52
Algeria 23:25–00:32
Saudi Arabia 23:53–01:17
Tanzania 00:04–01:37
Democratic Republic of the Congo 23:48–01:06
Somalia 23:56–01:50
Kenya 23:52–01:41
Central African Republic 23:38–00:56
Nigeria 23:35–00:31
Yemen 23:55–01:36
Madagascar 00:47–02:15
Uganda 23:52–01:18
Mali 23:31–00:22
Tunisia 23:26–00:31
Cameroon 23:37–00:31
Greece 23:45–00:27
Eritrea 23:44–01:21
Mozambique 00:38–01:36
Italy 23:36–00:27
Burundi 00:11–01:02
Rwanda 00:06–01:03
Jordan 00:00–00:32
Djibouti 23:54–01:25
Israel 23:59–00:32
Albania 23:54–00:17
Republic of the Congo 00:05–00:22
Seychelles 00:36–02:36
Comoros 00:42–01:49
Mayotte 00:47–01:55
Malta 23:34–00:28
Palestinian Territory 00:08–00:21
Oman 00:54–01:01

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 Delta Scorpii (Dschubba) at the moment of the occultation will be as follows:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Delta Scorpii (Dschubba) 16h00m20s 22°37'S Scorpius 2.3 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
28 May 2086 05 Feb 2097 Occultations of Delta Scorpii (Dschubba) 01 Apr 2097
01 Mar 2096 09 Feb 2097 Occultations 08 Mar 2097 25 Dec 2097

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

37%

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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