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

Lunar occultation of Antares

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Lunar Occultations feed

Objects: Antares

The Moon will pass in front of Antares (Alpha Scorpii), creating a lunar occultation visible from Sub-Saharan Africa. 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.

Unfortunately the occultation will not be visible from Ashburn.

The map below shows the visibility of the occultation across the world. Separate contours show where the disappearance of Antares (Alpha Scorpii) 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 Antares (Alpha Scorpii) 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)
Democratic Republic of the Congo 19:38–22:01
South Africa 20:13–21:57
Angola 19:38–21:48
Tanzania 20:39–22:17
Namibia 19:40–21:51
Mozambique 20:32–22:18
Zambia 20:08–22:07
Madagascar 21:04–22:24
Botswana 20:07–21:55
Kenya 21:02–22:12
Zimbabwe 20:19–22:05
Somalia 21:12–22:11
Ivory Coast 18:37–19:53
Gabon 19:31–20:53
Republic of the Congo 19:36–21:06
Ghana 18:53–19:55
Malawi 20:40–22:11
Uganda 20:56–21:49
Liberia 18:31–19:51
Burundi 20:44–21:49
Rwanda 20:48–21:45
Equatorial Guinea 19:43–20:23
Swaziland 20:43–21:51
Burkina Faso 18:54–19:33
Togo 19:14–19:47
Guinea 18:35–19:41
Ethiopia 21:37–21:54
Benin 19:23–19:43
Mauritius 21:30–22:12
Reunion 21:28–22:11
Sao Tome and Principe 19:23–20:26
Seychelles 21:09–22:29
Comoros 21:03–22:20
Mayotte 21:05–22:21
Saint Helena 18:38–20:23
British Indian Ocean Territory 21:33–22:18
Lesotho 20:42–21:36

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 Antares (Alpha Scorpii) at the moment of the occultation will be as follows:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Antares (Alpha Scorpii) 16h29m20s 26°25'S Scorpius 1.1 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
24 May 2024 20 Jun 2024 Occultations of Antares (Alpha Scorpii) 14 Aug 2024 10 May 2028
14 Jul 2024 14 Jul 2024 Occultations 24 Jul 2024 17 Sep 2024

The sky on 17 Jul 2024

The sky on 17 July 2024
Sunrise
05:55
Sunset
20:33
Twilight ends
22:26
Twilight begins
04:02

12-day old moon
Waxing Gibbous

88%

12 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 08:11 15:01 21:52
Venus 06:53 14:04 21:16
Moon 17:32 22:07 02:39
Mars 02:00 09:07 16:15
Jupiter 02:48 10:05 17:23
Saturn 23:07 04:49 10:31
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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Ashburn

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39.04°N
77.49°W
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