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

Lunar occultation of Delta Scorpii

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Lunar Occultations feed

Objects: Dschubba

The Moon will pass in front of Delta Scorpii (Dschubba), creating a lunar occultation visible from Africa, Western Asia and Europe. 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 Delta Scorpii (Dschubba) 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 Delta Scorpii (Dschubba) 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)
Algeria 02:52–19:35
Sudan 00:17–18:59
Libya 00:21–18:30
Democratic Republic of the Congo 00:20–18:57
Chad 00:17–18:41
Mali 03:48–19:27
Saudi Arabia 21:05–18:45
Niger 03:29–18:23
Ethiopia 00:21–19:02
Mauritania 03:34–02:02
Egypt 00:26–18:31
Nigeria 00:20–18:26
Spain 02:41–20:21
Central African Republic 00:17–18:51
Kenya 00:22–19:05
Tanzania 00:26–19:03
Morocco 02:47–03:02
France 02:49–20:09
Cameroon 00:18–18:28
Somalia 00:28–19:05
Western Sahara 03:40–01:35
Burkina Faso 04:14–19:21
Uganda 00:21–19:00
Republic of the Congo 00:23–18:32
Tunisia 03:21–19:12
Yemen 00:43–18:51
Ghana 04:20–19:12
Senegal 03:30–02:09
Gabon 00:28–19:41
Eritrea 00:29–18:51
Portugal 02:42–20:15
Benin 03:39–19:24
Jordan 21:03–18:13
Ivory Coast 04:00–02:24
Italy 03:16–20:23
Togo 03:38–19:15
Guinea 03:38–02:19
Burundi 00:28–18:54
Equatorial Guinea 00:31–19:31
Rwanda 00:26–18:55
Djibouti 00:34–18:53
Iraq 21:02–18:08
Israel 16:42–18:13
The Canary Islands 02:40–20:18
Corsica 03:22–20:11
Greece 03:54–02:42
Mallorca 03:06–20:18
Palestinian Territory 16:46–18:07
Syria 21:02–18:04
Menorca 03:09–20:17
Ibiza 03:04–20:19
Andorra 03:03–20:09
Gambia 03:33–02:07
Malta 03:37–20:26
Jersey 02:55–19:51
Guernsey 02:54–19:50
Melilla 02:56–20:23
Gibraltar 02:51–20:19
Monaco 03:17–20:04
Madeira 02:36–20:07
The Savage Islands 02:40–20:12
Isla de Alborán 02:56–20:22
Islas Chafarinas 02:57–20:24

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 Delta Scorpii (Dschubba) at the moment of the occultation will be as follows:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Delta Scorpii (Dschubba) 16h00m20s 22°37'S Scorpius 2.3 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
21 Dec 2022 24 Feb 2030 Occultations of Delta Scorpii (Dschubba) 20 Apr 2030 20 Apr 2030
11 Oct 2029 11 Mar 2030 Occultations 04 Apr 2030 08 Apr 2030

The sky on 23 Mar 2030

The sky on 23 March 2030
Sunrise
07:06
Sunset
19:23
Twilight ends
20:54
Twilight begins
05:36

19-day old moon
Waning Gibbous

70%

19 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 07:37 14:02 20:26
Venus 05:03 10:17 15:32
Moon 23:16 04:20 09:20
Mars 07:46 14:11 20:35
Jupiter 23:45 04:46 09:47
Saturn 09:24 16:21 23:18
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
EDT

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