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

Lunar occultation of Regulus

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Lunar Occultations feed

Objects: Regulus

The Moon will pass in front of Regulus (Alpha Leonis), creating a lunar occultation visible from 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 Regulus (Alpha Leonis) 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 Regulus (Alpha Leonis) 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)
China 14:49–17:48
Kazakhstan 14:25–16:16
India 14:48–17:16
Indonesia 16:58–18:21
Iran 14:18–15:49
Pakistan 14:31–16:23
Afghanistan 14:27–16:16
Myanmar 15:43–17:36
Uzbekistan 14:26–16:08
Turkmenistan 14:20–15:59
Thailand 16:01–17:47
Mongolia 15:35–16:35
Philippines 16:47–18:15
Vietnam 16:05–17:56
Malaysia 16:51–18:11
Kyrgyzstan 14:42–16:17
Laos 16:04–17:50
Tajikistan 14:38–16:16
Papua New Guinea 17:25–18:21
Cambodia 16:24–17:52
Nepal 15:05–16:58
Bangladesh 15:27–17:13
Oman 14:29–15:29
Russia 14:48–15:57
Taiwan 16:41–17:48
Bhutan 15:27–17:06
United Arab Emirates 14:30–15:26
Japan 16:49–17:43
Brunei 17:02–18:06
Hong Kong 16:30–17:45
Guam 17:16–18:06
Northern Mariana Islands 17:16–18:04
Palau 17:13–18:16
Federated States of Micronesia 17:19–18:03
Paracel Islands 16:34–17:54
Australia 17:54–18:03
Macao 16:29–17:44
East Timor 17:54–17:56
Spratly Islands 16:48–18:03

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 Regulus (Alpha Leonis) at the moment of the occultation will be as follows:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Regulus (Alpha Leonis) 10h08m20s 11°58'N Leo 1.4 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
02 Feb 1999 01 Mar 1999 Occultations of Regulus (Alpha Leonis) 24 Apr 1999 22 May 1999
02 Feb 1999 22 Mar 1999 Occultations 11 Apr 1999 19 Apr 1999

The sky on 16 Jun 2024

The sky on 16 June 2024
Sunrise
05:04
Sunset
20:23
Twilight ends
22:38
Twilight begins
02:49

10-day old moon
Waxing Gibbous

77%

10 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 05:11 12:54 20:36
Venus 05:19 12:57 20:36
Moon 15:06 20:38 02:00
Mars 02:27 09:16 16:05
Jupiter 03:51 11:14 18:37
Saturn 00:45 06:26 12:06
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
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