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

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 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.

Unfortunately the occultation will not be visible from Cambridge, though it will be visible from south-eastern parts of the Contiguous United States.

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.

Map showing where the occultation is visible

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)
Colombia 23:01–00:36
Venezuela 23:20–00:39
Brazil 23:37–00:35
Peru 23:23–00:27
Ecuador 23:15–00:27
Guyana 23:43–00:38
Suriname 23:52–00:35
Cuba 22:56–00:23
Nicaragua 22:49–00:19
Panama 23:00–00:29
The Contiguous United States 23:04–00:02
French Guiana 23:58–00:32
Costa Rica 22:52–00:22
Dominican Republic 23:18–00:32
Honduras 22:49–00:15
Haiti 23:14–00:29
Bahamas 23:09–00:23
Jamaica 23:07–00:23
Puerto Rico 23:25–00:35
Trinidad and Tobago 23:38–00:40
Guadeloupe 23:32–00:38
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 23:36–00:39
Turks and Caicos Islands 23:18–00:25
Barbados 23:38–00:40
British Virgin Islands 23:28–00:35
Cayman Islands 23:01–00:13
Martinique 23:34–00:39
Curacao 23:25–00:36
Saint Kitts and Nevis 23:31–00:37
Saint Lucia 23:35–00:39
U.S. Virgin Islands 23:27–00:36
Antigua and Barbuda 23:31–00:38
Dominica 23:34–00:39
Anguilla 23:30–00:36
Bonaire, Saint Eustatius and Saba 23:27–00:37
Grenada 23:36–00:39
Bermuda 23:26–00:11
Montserrat 23:32–00:38
Aruba 23:23–00:35
Sint Maarten 23:30–00:36
Saint Barthelemy 23:30–00:36
Saint Martin 23:30–00:36
Navassa Island 23:13–00:24

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 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
18 Jul 1986 10 Sep 1986 Occultations of Antares (Alpha Scorpii) 04 Nov 1986 25 Jan 1987
18 Jul 1986 05 Oct 1986 Occultations 22 Oct 1986 25 Jan 1987

The sky on 25 Jun 2024

The sky on 25 June 2024
Sunrise
05:06
Sunset
20:25
Twilight ends
22:40
Twilight begins
02:51

19-day old moon
Waning Gibbous

83%

19 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 06:00 13:41 21:22
Venus 05:32 13:10 20:49
Moon 22:59 03:49 08:47
Mars 02:08 09:06 16:03
Jupiter 03:23 10:47 18:11
Saturn 00:10 05:51 11:31
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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Cambridge

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42.38°N
71.11°W
EDT

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