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

Lunar occultation of Regulus

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Lunar Occultations feed

Objects: Regulus

The Moon will pass in front of Regulus (Alpha Leonis), creating a lunar occultation visible from countries and territories including Brazil, the eastern Contiguous United States, Colombia and Venezuela 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.

Unfortunately the occultation will not be visible from Cambridge, though it will be visible from eastern parts of the Contiguous United States.

The map below shows the visibility of the occultation across the world. Separate contours show where the disappearance of Regulus (Alpha Leonis) 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 Regulus (Alpha Leonis) 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)
Brazil 01:44–03:38
The Contiguous United States 00:06–02:00
Colombia 01:00–03:03
Venezuela 01:16–03:07
Mexico 00:25–01:55
Bolivia 02:23–03:15
Peru 01:49–02:58
Guyana 01:44–03:14
Suriname 01:53–03:14
Ecuador 01:46–02:42
Cuba 00:31–02:20
Nicaragua 00:51–02:13
Honduras 00:43–02:10
Guatemala 00:35–01:53
Panama 01:11–02:34
French Guiana 01:59–03:15
Costa Rica 01:04–02:15
Dominican Republic 01:01–02:30
Haiti 00:57–02:27
Bahamas 00:36–02:19
Belize 00:35–01:54
El Salvador 00:50–01:56
Jamaica 00:50–02:21
Puerto Rico 01:14–02:33
Trinidad and Tobago 01:37–02:55
Guadeloupe 01:30–02:40
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 01:35–02:49
Turks and Caicos Islands 00:58–02:20
Barbados 01:39–02:49
British Virgin Islands 01:20–02:32
Cayman Islands 00:42–02:10
Martinique 01:33–02:44
Curacao 01:20–02:44
Saint Kitts and Nevis 01:27–02:37
Saint Lucia 01:34–02:47
U.S. Virgin Islands 01:20–02:34
Antigua and Barbuda 01:29–02:37
Dominica 01:32–02:42
Anguilla 01:25–02:34
Bonaire, Saint Eustatius and Saba 01:22–02:45
Grenada 01:35–02:50
Montserrat 01:28–02:38
Aruba 01:17–02:41
Sint Maarten 01:25–02:34
Saint Barthelemy 01:25–02:34
Saint Martin 01:25–02:34
Navassa Island 00:56–02:22

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 Regulus (Alpha Leonis) at the moment of the occultation will be as follows:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Regulus (Alpha Leonis) 10h08m20s 11°58'N Leo 1.4 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
03 Feb 2026 29 Mar 2026 Occultations of Regulus (Alpha Leonis) 23 May 2026 29 Jun 2044
18 Feb 2026 21 Apr 2026 Occultations 04 May 2026 17 Jun 2026

The sky on 25 Apr 2026

The sky on 25 April 2026
Sunrise
05:45
Sunset
19:36
Twilight ends
21:23
Twilight begins
03:59

8-day old moon
Waxing Gibbous

75%

8 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 05:14 11:32 17:50
Venus 07:00 14:26 21:51
Moon 13:28 20:35 03:27
Mars 04:57 11:15 17:32
Jupiter 10:13 17:46 01:19
Saturn 04:55 11:03 17:10
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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Cambridge

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Longitude:
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42.38°N
71.11°W
EDT

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