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

Lunar occultation of Beta1 Scorpii

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Lunar Occultations feed

Objects: Acrab
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The Moon will pass in front of Beta1 Scorpii (Acrab), creating a lunar occultation visible from the Americas. 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 Fairfield. It will begin with the disappearance of Beta1 Scorpii (Acrab) behind the Moon at 01:31 EST, though at a low altitude of only 4.2 degrees, in the south-eastern sky. Its reappearance will be visible at 02:26 EST at an altitude of 12.6 degrees.

The map below shows the visibility of the occultation across the world. Separate contours show where the disappearance of Beta1 Scorpii (Acrab) 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 Beta1 Scorpii (Acrab) 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)
The Contiguous United States 06:14–07:25
Venezuela 06:31–07:31
Brazil 06:54–08:17
Canada 06:34–07:23
Guyana 06:39–07:34
Suriname 06:47–07:44
Cuba 06:16–07:17
French Guiana 06:49–07:50
Dominican Republic 06:18–07:25
Haiti 06:18–07:20
Bahamas 06:15–07:20
Colombia 06:31–07:08
Mexico 06:19–07:02
Jamaica 06:20–07:10
Puerto Rico 06:21–07:29
Honduras 06:34–06:46
Trinidad and Tobago 06:32–07:34
Guadeloupe 06:25–07:37
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 06:29–07:35
Turks and Caicos Islands 06:17–07:23
Barbados 06:30–07:39
British Virgin Islands 06:22–07:32
Cayman Islands 06:20–07:05
Martinique 06:27–07:36
Curacao 06:30–07:14
Saint Kitts and Nevis 06:24–07:35
Saint Lucia 06:28–07:36
U.S. Virgin Islands 06:21–07:31
Antigua and Barbuda 06:24–07:37
Dominica 06:26–07:36
Anguilla 06:23–07:35
Bonaire, Saint Eustatius and Saba 06:23–07:34
Grenada 06:30–07:33
Bermuda 06:27–07:33
Montserrat 06:24–07:35
Aruba 06:29–07:12
Sint Maarten 06:23–07:34
Saint Barthelemy 06:23–07:34
Saint Martin 06:23–07:34
Navassa Island 06:19–07:13

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 50% illuminated. Beta1 Scorpii (Acrab) will disappear behind the illuminated side of the Moon and reappear from behind the unilluminated side of the Moon.

The position of Beta1 Scorpii (Acrab) at the moment of the occultation will be as follows:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Beta1 Scorpii (Acrab) 16h05m20s 19°48'S Scorpius 2.6 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 Sep 1957 26 Jan 1976 Occultations of Beta1 Scorpii (Acrab) 20 Mar 1976 08 Jul 1976
07 Jul 1975 19 Feb 1976 Occultations 17 Mar 1976 21 Mar 1976

The sky on 20 May 2024

The sky on 20 May 2024
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Sunset
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Twilight ends
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Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 04:35 11:17 17:59
Venus 05:20 12:32 19:43
Moon 17:26 22:52 04:08
Mars 03:35 09:55 16:15
Jupiter 05:29 12:43 19:56
Saturn 02:36 08:16 13:56
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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Fairfield

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41.14°N
73.26°W
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