Lunar occultation of Antares

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Lunar Occultations feed


Objects: Antares

The Moon will pass in front of Antares (Alpha Scorpii), creating a lunar occultation visible from Africa and Northern America. 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 Antares (Alpha Scorpii) behind the Moon at 23:19 EDT, though at a low altitude of only 1.3 degrees, in the south-eastern sky. Its reappearance will be visible at 00:23 EDT, though at a low altitude of 9.7 degrees.

The map below shows the visibility of the occultation across the world. Separate contours show where the disappearance of Antares (Alpha Scorpii) 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 Antares (Alpha Scorpii) 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)
Mauritania 04:46–06:45
Mali 05:07–06:46
Canada 03:21–04:48
Western Sahara 04:45–06:32
Guinea 05:04–06:40
Morocco 04:53–06:31
Senegal 04:50–06:37
Algeria 05:04–06:38
Liberia 05:24–06:36
The Contiguous United States 03:20–04:30
Ivory Coast 05:27–06:42
Sierra Leone 05:13–06:36
Guinea-Bissau 04:58–06:33
Portugal 04:59–06:15
The Canary Islands 04:39–06:19
Gambia 04:55–06:32
Cape Verde 04:25–06:11
The Portuguese Azores 04:06–05:39
Saint Pierre and Miquelon 03:30–04:44
Bermuda 03:24–04:19
Madeira 04:43–06:05
The Savage Islands 04:44–06:12

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 6 days past new moon and will be 87% illuminated. Antares (Alpha Scorpii) will disappear behind the illuminated side of the Moon and reappear from behind the unilluminated side of the Moon.

The position of Antares (Alpha Scorpii) at the moment of the occultation will be as follows:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Antares (Alpha Scorpii) 16h29m20s 26°25'S Scorpius 1.1 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
23 Feb 2098 22 Mar 2098 Occultations of Antares (Alpha Scorpii) 16 May 2098 10 Jul 2098
23 Feb 2098 13 Apr 2098 Occultations 04 May 2098 07 Jun 2098

The sky on 22 Jul 2024

The sky on 22 July 2024
Sunrise
05:24
Sunset
20:13
Twilight ends
22:15
Twilight begins
03:22


Waning Gibbous

93%

17 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 07:49 14:35 21:21
Venus 06:31 13:44 20:58
Moon 20:57 01:38 06:28
Mars 01:17 08:37 15:56
Jupiter 01:56 09:25 16:53
Saturn 22:24 04:03 09:43
All times shown in EDT.

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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