The Moon in conjunction with Venus and Jupiter, with the Very Large Telescope in the foreground. Image © Y. Beletsky, ESO, 2009.

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 and Western Asia. 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.

Map showing where the occultation is visible

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 23:56–01:34
Democratic Republic of the Congo 23:38–01:30
Saudi Arabia 00:25–01:37
Chad 23:34–01:21
Mali 22:09–00:26
Niger 22:51–00:58
Ethiopia 00:18–01:38
Mauritania 21:59–23:58
Nigeria 22:55–01:04
Egypt 00:12–01:22
Somalia 00:31–01:38
Central African Republic 23:34–01:28
Kenya 00:23–01:33
Angola 23:37–01:05
Libya 23:59–01:09
Tanzania 00:22–01:25
Cameroon 23:15–01:13
Yemen 00:27–01:38
Algeria 23:09–00:19
Republic of the Congo 23:31–01:17
Ivory Coast 22:19–00:22
Western Sahara 22:02–23:25
Burkina Faso 22:28–00:30
Gabon 23:19–01:09
Guinea 22:01–00:03
Uganda 00:17–01:32
Ghana 22:35–00:34
Senegal 21:56–23:47
Eritrea 00:22–01:38
Benin 22:49–00:39
Liberia 22:12–00:07
Sierra Leone 22:06–23:55
Iraq 00:32–01:18
Togo 22:46–00:36
Jordan 00:33–01:03
Guinea-Bissau 21:58–23:41
Burundi 00:22–01:22
Equatorial Guinea 23:15–01:03
Rwanda 00:20–01:24
Djibouti 00:29–01:38
Gambia 21:58–23:38
The Canary Islands 22:14–23:00
Cape Verde 21:42–23:13
Israel 00:34–00:59
Sao Tome and Principe 23:10–00:54
Morocco 22:41–22:57
Saint Helena 22:43–23:26

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
10 Apr 1974 07 May 1974 Occultations of Delta Scorpii (Dschubba) 01 Jul 1974 01 Jul 1974
10 Apr 1974 24 May 1974 Occultations 01 Jul 1974 01 Jul 1974

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

21-day old moon
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.

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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Cambridge

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