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

Lunar occultation of Jupiter

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Lunar Occultations feed

Objects: Jupiter
Please wait
Loading 0/4
Click and drag to rotate
Mouse wheel to zoom in/out
Touch with mouse to dismiss
The sky at

The Moon will pass in front of Jupiter, creating a lunar occultation visible from countries and territories including Canada, Greenland, eastern Russia and the Contiguous United States 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 Columbus. It will begin with the disappearance of Jupiter behind the Moon at 14:55 EDT, though in daylight. Its reappearance will be visible at 15:59 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 Jupiter 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 Jupiter 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 Jupiter.

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)
Canada 17:33–19:55
Greenland 17:54–19:20
Russia 17:03–18:30
The Contiguous United States 18:24–20:17
Alaska 17:18–18:39
Svalbard 17:52–18:40
Cuba 19:37–20:23
Iceland 18:27–19:05
Dominican Republic 19:42–20:25
Haiti 19:42–20:24
Bahamas 19:26–20:23
Venezuela 20:04–20:20
Jamaica 19:49–20:21
Puerto Rico 19:42–20:25
Mexico 19:50–20:07
Colombia 20:06–20:19
Guadeloupe 19:45–20:26
Turks and Caicos Islands 19:37–20:23
British Virgin Islands 19:42–20:25
Cayman Islands 19:50–20:16
Curacao 20:02–20:22
Saint Kitts and Nevis 19:44–20:26
U.S. Virgin Islands 19:42–20:26
Antigua and Barbuda 19:42–20:26
Dominica 19:47–20:26
Anguilla 19:42–20:25
Saint Pierre and Miquelon 18:56–19:47
Bonaire, Saint Eustatius and Saba 19:43–20:26
Bermuda 19:17–20:12
Montserrat 19:44–20:26
Aruba 20:03–20:21
Sint Maarten 19:42–20:26
Saint Barthelemy 19:42–20:26
Saint Martin 19:42–20:25
Svalbard and Jan Mayen 17:59–18:39
Navassa Island 19:47–20:22

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.

At the time of the occultation, the Moon will be 0 days past new moon and will be 7% illuminated. Jupiter will disappear behind the illuminated side of the Moon and reappear from behind the unilluminated side of the Moon.

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

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Jupiter 09h10m10s 16°52'N Cancer -1.8 0'31"

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
17 May 2023 17 May 2023 Occultations of Jupiter 06 Oct 2026 06 Oct 2026
17 Jun 2026 05 Sep 2026 Occultations 14 Sep 2026 06 Oct 2026

The sky on 8 Sep 2026

The sky on 8 September 2026
Sunrise
07:03
Sunset
19:52
Twilight ends
21:25
Twilight begins
05:29

27-day old moon
Waning Crescent

4%

27 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 07:57 14:08 20:19
Venus 10:48 15:59 21:11
Moon 04:03 11:24 18:33
Mars 02:12 09:39 17:05
Jupiter 04:29 11:31 18:33
Saturn 21:02 03:13 09:25
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

10 Mar 2026  –  Jupiter ends retrograde motion
12 Dec 2026  –  Jupiter enters retrograde motion
10 Feb 2027  –  Jupiter at opposition
12 Apr 2027  –  Jupiter ends retrograde motion

Image credit

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

Share

Columbus

Latitude:
Longitude:
Timezone:

39.96°N
83.00°W
EST

Color scheme