Simulated image courtesy of Tom Ruen.

New Moon

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Moon feed

Objects: The Moon
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The sky at

The Moon will pass close to the Sun and become lost in the its glare for a few days.

The Moon's orbital motion carries it around the Earth once every four weeks, and as a result its phases cycle from new moon, through first quarter, full moon and last quarter, back to new moon once every 29.5 days.

This motion also means that the Moon travels more than 12° across the sky from one night to the next, causing it to rise and set nearly an hour later each day. More information about the Moon's phases is available here.

At new moon, the Earth, Moon and Sun all lie in a roughly straight line, with the Moon in the middle, appearing in front of the Sun's glare. In this configuration, we see almost exactly the opposite half of the Moon to that which is illuminated by the Sun, making it doubly unobservable because the side we see is unilluminated.

Observing the Moon in the days after new moon

Over coming days, the Moon will become visible in the late afternoon and dusk sky as a waxing crescent which sets soon after the Sun. By first quarter, in a week's time, it will be visible until around midnight.

Its daily progress is charted below, with all times are given in Fairfield local time.

Date Sun
sets at
Moon
sets at
Altitude of Moon
at sunset
Direction of Moon
at sunset
15 Sep 202319:0419:10west
16 Sep 202319:0219:29west
17 Sep 202319:0119:49west
18 Sep 202318:5920:0912°south-west
19 Sep 202318:5720:3215°south-west
20 Sep 202318:5520:5917°south-west
21 Sep 202318:5421:3219°south-west

The exact moment of new moon

At the moment of closest approach, it will pass within 2°50' of the Sun, in the constellation Leo. The celestial coordinates of the Sun and Moon will be:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Angular Size
The Moon 11h33m50s 5°55'N Leo 29'32"
Sun (centre) 11h29m 3°18'N Leo 31'48"

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

The sky on 14 Sep 2023

The sky on 14 September 2023
Sunrise
06:29
Sunset
19:04
Twilight ends
20:38
Twilight begins
04:55

29-day old moon
Waxing Crescent

0%

29 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 05:26 11:55 18:24
Venus 03:35 10:19 17:02
Moon 05:51 12:36 19:10
Mars 08:12 14:01 19:50
Jupiter 21:15 04:12 11:10
Saturn 18:17 23:36 04:55
All times shown in EDT.

Warning

Never attempt to point a pair of binoculars or a telescope at an object close to the Sun. Doing so may result in immediate and permanent blindness.

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

14 Sep 2023  –  New Moon
22 Sep 2023  –  Moon at First Quarter
29 Sep 2023  –  Full Moon
06 Oct 2023  –  Moon at Last Quarter

Image credit

Simulated image courtesy of Tom Ruen.

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41.14°N
73.26°W
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