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

The Moon will pass in front of Beta1 Scorpii (Acrab), creating a lunar occultation visible from Africa. 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 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)
Democratic Republic of the Congo 01:17–03:23
Sudan 01:31–03:25
Mali 00:49–02:04
Niger 00:55–02:17
Algeria 01:03–02:00
Mauritania 00:49–01:56
Chad 01:10–02:38
Angola 01:19–02:59
Tanzania 01:45–03:51
Nigeria 00:57–02:24
Zambia 01:46–03:31
Ethiopia 02:00–03:45
Central African Republic 01:10–03:01
Mozambique 02:08–03:52
Kenya 01:55–03:52
Cameroon 01:03–02:37
Republic of the Congo 01:11–02:43
Ivory Coast 00:51–02:00
Western Sahara 00:50–01:49
Zimbabwe 02:09–03:18
Burkina Faso 00:52–02:06
Gabon 01:08–02:34
Guinea 00:50–01:54
Uganda 01:43–03:29
Ghana 00:53–02:06
Senegal 00:49–01:51
Morocco 01:00–01:44
Malawi 02:01–03:34
Somalia 02:17–03:55
Benin 00:55–02:08
Liberia 00:53–01:53
Sierra Leone 00:51–01:51
Togo 00:54–02:07
Guinea-Bissau 00:50–01:49
Burundi 01:43–03:22
Equatorial Guinea 01:04–02:26
Rwanda 01:42–03:21
Gambia 00:49–01:49
Namibia 02:15–02:44
Botswana 02:19–02:42
The Canary Islands 00:59–01:45
Sao Tome and Principe 01:05–02:18

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 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
22 Feb 1995 04 Feb 2013 Occultations of Beta1 Scorpii (Acrab) 31 Mar 2013 31 Mar 2013
13 Aug 2012 01 Mar 2013 Occultations 28 Mar 2013 31 Mar 2013

The sky on 27 Apr 2024

The sky on 27 April 2024
Sunrise
05:42
Sunset
19:39
Twilight ends
21:27
Twilight begins
03:54

19-day old moon
Waning Gibbous

81%

19 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 05:01 11:21 17:40
Venus 05:25 12:03 18:41
Moon 22:55 03:15 07:31
Mars 04:17 10:12 16:07
Jupiter 06:31 13:42 20:54
Saturn 03:54 09:31 15:08
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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