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

Lunar occultation of Uranus

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Lunar Occultations feed

Objects: Uranus

The Moon will pass in front of Uranus, creating a lunar occultation visible from Russia, Asia, Europe and Northern Africa.

Unfortunately the occultation will not be visible from Fairfield, though a close conjunction between the pair will be more widely visible.

The map below shows the visibility of the occultation across the world. Separate contours show where the disappearance of Uranus 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 Uranus 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)
Russia 08:31–04:16
Kazakhstan 14:02–18:35
Egypt 21:02–02:17
Turkey 21:01–18:03
Sweden 13:24–05:16
Ukraine 21:07–05:48
Norway 13:19–05:10
Saudi Arabia 03:20–02:49
Finland 13:22–05:13
China 17:59–19:43
Iran 16:56–18:46
Germany 13:02–19:45
Iraq 03:10–18:07
Poland 13:00–05:32
Sudan 01:19–02:37
Turkmenistan 17:10–18:39
Libya 20:34–01:59
Mongolia 17:20–04:02
Svalbard 12:57–20:23
Uzbekistan 17:12–18:39
Belarus 14:07–05:31
Romania 21:02–05:47
Italy 13:27–20:23
Syria 03:11–18:29
Greece 20:53–02:41
Bulgaria 20:59–05:50
Hungary 21:00–05:36
Serbia 20:57–02:16
Latvia 14:02–05:21
Czechia 13:09–05:29
Azerbaijan 21:49–18:17
Lithuania 12:55–05:24
Austria 13:21–02:14
Jordan 03:18–18:32
Georgia 21:29–05:58
Estonia 13:53–05:18
Denmark 12:58–05:17
Croatia 20:54–02:21
Slovakia 21:03–05:33
Bosnia and Herzegovina 20:56–02:19
Moldova 21:10–05:43
Armenia 21:45–18:10
Macedonia 20:56–02:22
Albania 20:54–02:28
Slovenia 20:57–02:16
Netherlands 13:08–19:38
Israel 03:19–06:23
Montenegro 20:56–02:21
Switzerland 13:22–19:56
Greenland 09:27–19:13
Cyprus 21:22–06:10
Kuwait 14:37–18:37
Lebanon 03:16–06:15
Palestinian Territory 03:20–06:19
Aland Islands 13:54–05:12
RAF Akrotiri 03:15–06:10
France 19:14–20:09
Vatican 20:51–20:04
Liechtenstein 13:23–02:14
San Marino 20:54–02:20
Svalbard and Jan Mayen 13:01–04:50

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 Uranus at the moment of the occultation will be as follows:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Uranus 02h52m40s 16°08'N Aries 5.7 0'03"

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
12 Oct 2022 08 Nov 2022 Occultations of Uranus 01 Jan 2023 29 Sep 2029
12 Oct 2022 26 Nov 2022 Occultations 08 Dec 2022 08 Dec 2022

The sky on 05 Dec 2022

The sky on 05 December 2022
Sunrise
07:00
Sunset
16:23
Twilight ends
18:02
Twilight begins
05:21

12-day old moon
Waxing Gibbous

96%

12 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 08:21 12:45 17:09
Venus 07:56 12:29 17:01
Moon 14:47 22:04 05:32
Mars 16:15 23:54 07:34
Jupiter 12:54 18:51 00:48
Saturn 11:20 16:25 21:30
All times shown in EST.

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

09 Nov 2022  –  Uranus at opposition
13 Nov 2023  –  Uranus at opposition
16 Nov 2024  –  Uranus at opposition
21 Nov 2025  –  Uranus at opposition

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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