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 the Americas. 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.

The occultation will be visible from Ashburn. It will begin with the disappearance of Delta Scorpii (Dschubba) behind the Moon at 05:20 EST, though at a low altitude of only -1.6 degrees, in the south-eastern sky. Its reappearance will be visible at 05:42 EST, though at a low altitude of 2.1 degrees.

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 the contours, the Moon will 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 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)
Colombia 10:03–11:00
Nicaragua 10:04–10:50
Panama 10:10–10:50
Cuba 09:58–10:55
Costa Rica 10:12–10:44
Dominican Republic 09:59–11:01
Venezuela 10:03–11:01
Honduras 10:03–10:50
The Contiguous United States 10:00–10:54
Bahamas 09:58–10:55
Puerto Rico 10:00–11:03
Cayman Islands 09:59–10:54
Haiti 09:59–10:59
Aruba 10:02–11:01

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 6 days past new moon and will be 5% illuminated. Delta Scorpii (Dschubba) will disappear behind the illuminated side of the Moon and reappear from behind the unilluminated 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 27 Oct 2022 Occultations of Delta Scorpii (Dschubba) 17 Jan 2023 20 Apr 2030
08 Dec 2022 08 Dec 2022 Occultations 01 Jan 2023 31 Jan 2023

The sky on 21 Dec 2022

The sky on 21 December 2022
Sunrise
07:23
Sunset
16:50
Twilight ends
18:26
Twilight begins
05:46

28-day old moon
Waning Crescent

2%

28 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 08:53 13:34 18:14
Venus 08:31 13:10 17:50
Moon 05:23 10:17 15:05
Mars 15:12 22:43 06:15
Jupiter 12:10 18:09 00:07
Saturn 10:33 15:44 20:54
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.

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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Ashburn

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Longitude:
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39.04°N
77.49°W
EDT

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