The Moon and Saturn will share the same right ascension, with the Moon passing 16' to the south of Saturn. The Moon will be 21 days old.
At around the same time, the two objects will also make a close approach, technically called an appulse.
From Cambridge , the pair will be visible in the morning sky, becoming accessible around 00:34, when they reach an altitude of 10° above your south-eastern horizon. They will then reach their highest point in the sky at 04:37, 33° above your southern horizon. They will be lost to dawn twilight around 06:00, 30° above your south-western horizon.
The Moon will be at mag -12.2, and Saturn at mag 0.2, both in the constellation Libra.
The pair will be close enough to fit within the field of view of a telescope, but will also be visible to the naked eye or through a pair of binoculars.
A graph of the angular separation between the Moon and Saturn around the time of closest approach is available here.
The positions of the two objects at the moment of conjunction will be as follows:
| Object | Right Ascension | Declination | Constellation | Magnitude | Angular Size |
| The Moon | 14h59m20s | 14°43'S | Libra | -12.2 | 31'44"3 |
| Saturn | 14h59m20s | 14°26'S | Libra | 0.2 | 17"4 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 106° from the Sun, which is in Aquarius at this time of year.
The sky on 17 May 2024
| The sky on 17 May 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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71% 9 days old |
All times shown in EDT.
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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
| 01 Jul 1983 | – Saturn ends retrograde motion |
| 24 Feb 1984 | – Saturn enters retrograde motion |
| 03 May 1984 | – Saturn at opposition |
| 13 Jul 1984 | – Saturn ends retrograde motion |
Image credit
The Moon in conjunction with Venus and Jupiter, with the Very Large Telescope in the foreground. Image © Y. Beletsky, ESO, 2009.