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

Lunar occultation of Spica

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Lunar Occultations feed

Objects: Spica

The Moon will pass in front of Spica (Alpha Virginis), creating a lunar occultation visible from 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 Cambridge.

The map below shows the visibility of the occultation across the world. Separate contours show where the disappearance of Spica (Alpha Virginis) 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 Spica (Alpha Virginis) 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)
Mauritania 02:20–03:30
Angola 03:31–05:29
Mali 02:25–03:44
Ivory Coast 02:32–04:00
Nigeria 02:56–04:05
Burkina Faso 02:36–03:46
Gabon 03:16–04:38
Guinea 02:23–03:49
Ghana 02:41–04:01
Senegal 02:19–03:36
Democratic Republic of the Congo 03:32–04:57
Republic of the Congo 03:27–04:43
Western Sahara 02:23–03:14
Benin 02:52–03:58
Liberia 02:29–03:57
Namibia 03:47–05:33
Cameroon 03:19–04:09
Sierra Leone 02:26–03:48
Togo 02:49–03:58
Guinea-Bissau 02:21–03:36
Niger 02:59–03:29
Equatorial Guinea 03:17–04:16
Gambia 02:20–03:33
Cape Verde 02:14–03:24
Sao Tome and Principe 03:08–04:22
Saint Helena 02:58–04:34

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 Spica (Alpha Virginis) at the moment of the occultation will be as follows:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Spica (Alpha Virginis) 13h25m10s 11°09'S Virgo 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
27 Nov 2024 24 Dec 2024 Occultations of Spica (Alpha Virginis) 17 Feb 2025 01 Mar 2032
14 Jan 2025 14 Jan 2025 Occultations 25 Jan 2025 07 Mar 2025

The sky on 20 Jan 2025

The sky on 20 January 2025
Sunrise
07:06
Sunset
16:42
Twilight ends
18:21
Twilight begins
05:27

21-day old moon
Waning Gibbous

51%

21 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 06:31 11:01 15:31
Venus 09:08 14:55 20:41
Moon 22:51 04:35 10:09
Mars 15:41 23:28 07:15
Jupiter 12:52 20:21 03:49
Saturn 09:17 14:53 20:29
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.

Share

Cambridge

Latitude:
Longitude:
Timezone:

42.38°N
71.11°W
EST

Color scheme