The Moon and Uranus will make a close approach, passing within a mere 29.9 arcminutes of each other. From some parts of the world, the Moon will pass in front of Uranus, creating a lunar occultation. The Moon will be 16 days old.
From Fairfield , the pair will be visible between 23:01 and 04:16. They will become accessible at around 23:01, when they rise to an altitude of 21° above your south-eastern horizon. They will reach their highest point in the sky at 01:38, 31° above your southern horizon. They will become inaccessible at around 04:16 when they sink below 21° above your south-western horizon.
The Moon will be at mag -12.6; and Uranus will be at mag 5.7. Both objects will lie in the constellation Capricornus.
They will be close enough to fit within the field of view of a telescope, but will also be visible through a pair of binoculars.
A graph of the angular separation between the Moon and Uranus around the time of closest approach is available here.
The positions of the pair at the moment of closest approach will be as follows:
| Object | Right Ascension | Declination | Constellation | Magnitude | Angular Size |
| The Moon | 21h11m00s | 16°28'S | Capricornus | -12.6 | 30'33"4 |
| Uranus | 21h11m30s | 16°57'S | Capricornus | 5.7 | 3"7 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 170° from the Sun, which is in Cancer at this time of year.
The sky on 20 May 2024
| The sky on 20 May 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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93% 12 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
| 21 May 1999 | – Uranus enters retrograde motion |
| 07 Aug 1999 | – Uranus at opposition |
| 23 Oct 1999 | – Uranus ends retrograde motion |
| 25 May 2000 | – Uranus enters 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.