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

Lunar occultation of Delta Scorpii

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Lunar Occultations feed

Objects: Dschubba
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The Moon will pass in front of Delta Scorpii (Dschubba), creating a lunar occultation visible from Africa and Europe.

The occultation will be visible from Fairfield. It will begin with the disappearance of Delta Scorpii (Dschubba) behind the Moon at 15:56 EDT, though In daylight and at a low altitude of only 6.2 degrees, in the south-eastern sky. Its reappearance will be visible at 16:52 EDT, though In daylight.

Extreme caution is necessary when pointing binoculars or telescopes at the sky when the Sun is above the horizon, as even a momentary glance at the Sun through such an instrument can cause permanent blindness.

The map below shows the visibility of the occultation across the world. Separate contours show where the disappearance of Delta Scorpii (Dschubba) 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 of the contours, the Moon does not pass in front of Delta Scorpii (Dschubba) at any time, or is below the horizon at the time of the occultation. However, a close conjunction between the pair may be visible.

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)
Algeria 19:26–21:05
Mali 19:39–21:09
Niger 20:33–21:22
Mauritania 19:18–20:51
Nigeria 21:46–03:07
Spain 19:12–20:21
Libya 20:34–21:13
Chad 21:48–03:27
Morocco 19:18–20:31
France 19:14–20:09
Ivory Coast 00:43–21:02
Western Sahara 19:16–20:32
Burkina Faso 20:56–21:12
Guinea 00:49–20:41
Ghana 00:47–21:13
Cameroon 21:37–03:17
Senegal 10:14–20:27
Tunisia 20:36–20:43
Portugal 19:13–20:15
Benin 21:05–21:16
Liberia 00:43–21:27
Sierra Leone 00:46–21:24
Togo 00:51–21:14
Guinea-Bissau 11:17–21:16
The Canary Islands 19:05–20:18
Great Britain 19:12–19:49
Italy 13:27–20:23
Gambia 10:19–22:48
Cape Verde 18:56–21:12
Mallorca 20:43–20:18
Ireland 19:10–19:44
Central African Republic 21:38–03:37
The Portuguese Azores 18:43–00:18
Menorca 20:44–20:16
Ibiza 19:26–20:19
Andorra 20:48–20:09
Jersey 21:00–19:50
Guernsey 21:01–19:50
Melilla 19:25–20:23
Gibraltar 19:21–20:19
Madeira 19:06–20:07
The Savage Islands 19:09–20:12
Isla de Alborán 19:24–20:22
Islas Chafarinas 19:26–20:24

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.

At the time of the occultation, the Moon will be 25 days past new moon and will be 66% illuminated. Delta Scorpii (Dschubba) will disappear behind the unilluminated side of the Moon and reappear from behind the illuminated side of the Moon.

The position of Delta Scorpii (Dschubba) at the moment of the occultation will be as follows:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Delta Scorpii (Dschubba) 16h00m20s 22°37'S Scorpius 2.3 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
13 Jun 2022 10 Jul 2022 Occultations of Delta Scorpii (Dschubba) 03 Sep 2022 20 Apr 2030
13 Jun 2022 22 Jul 2022 Occultations 09 Aug 2022 12 Oct 2022

The sky on 06 Aug 2022

The sky on 06 August 2022
Sunrise
05:50
Sunset
20:03
Twilight ends
21:52
Twilight begins
04:01

9-day old moon
Waxing Gibbous

71%

9 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 07:33 14:15 20:57
Venus 04:09 11:33 18:58
Moon 15:06 19:57 00:41
Mars 00:07 07:10 14:14
Jupiter 22:16 04:26 10:36
Saturn 20:26 01:34 06:41
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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41.14°N
73.26°W
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