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

Lunar occultation of Venus

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Lunar Occultations feed

Objects: Venus
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The Moon will pass in front of Venus, creating a lunar occultation visible from countries and territories including the eastern Contiguous United States, eastern Canada, Mexico and southern Greenland amongst others. 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 Cambridge. It will begin with the disappearance of Venus behind the Moon at 12:44 EDT, though in daylight. Its reappearance will be visible at 13:57 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 Venus 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 Venus 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.

The animation below shows the path of the occultation across the Earth's globe. The red circle shows where the Moon appears in front of Venus.

You can download this video in MP4 or OGG format.

A complete list of the countries and territories where the occultation will be visible is as follows:

Country Time span
(UTC)
The Contiguous United States 15:49–18:01
Canada 16:40–18:15
Mexico 15:20–17:12
Greenland 17:22–18:02
Colombia 15:41–16:59
Cuba 15:50–17:28
Nicaragua 15:27–17:04
Honduras 15:27–17:05
Guatemala 15:22–17:01
Panama 15:32–16:50
Costa Rica 15:27–16:52
Dominican Republic 16:17–17:27
Haiti 16:08–17:27
Bahamas 16:06–17:37
Belize 15:30–17:04
El Salvador 15:24–16:55
Venezuela 16:20–16:48
Jamaica 15:57–17:20
Puerto Rico 16:37–17:20
Ecuador 15:00–16:17
The Portuguese Azores 17:29–18:25
French Polynesia 14:12–15:10
Turks and Caicos Islands 16:19–17:33
British Virgin Islands 16:50–17:15
Cayman Islands 15:51–17:17
U.S. Virgin Islands 16:48–17:16
Saint Pierre and Miquelon 17:04–18:13
Bermuda 16:43–18:00
Aruba 16:37–16:45
Clipperton Island 14:56–16:02
Navassa Island 16:06–17:21

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 0 days past new moon and will be 2% illuminated. Venus will disappear behind the illuminated side of the Moon and reappear from behind the unilluminated side of the Moon.

The position of Venus at the moment of the occultation will be as follows:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Venus 00h12m30s 0°16'S Pisces -3.9 0'10"

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 Dec 2020 09 Nov 2023 Occultations of Venus 05 Sep 2024 17 Jun 2026
03 Mar 2024 06 Apr 2024 Occultations 13 Apr 2024 24 May 2024

The sky on 7 Apr 2024

The sky on 7 April 2024
Sunrise
06:13
Sunset
19:16
Twilight ends
20:56
Twilight begins
04:35

28-day old moon
Waning Crescent

0%

28 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 06:17 13:07 19:57
Venus 05:49 11:51 17:53
Moon 05:49 11:49 18:03
Mars 05:01 10:33 16:06
Jupiter 07:36 14:43 21:49
Saturn 05:08 10:42 16:16
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.

Related news

23 Oct 2023  –  Venus at greatest elongation west
10 Jan 2025  –  Venus at greatest elongation east
02 Feb 2025  –  Venus at highest altitude in evening sky
31 May 2025  –  Venus at greatest elongation west

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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