Simulated image courtesy of Tom Ruen.

The Moon at perihelion

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Moon feed

Objects: The Moon
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The sky at

The Moon's monthly orbit around the Earth will carry it to its closest point to the Sun – its perihelion – at a distance of 1.0140 AU from the Sun.

This happens at around the time when the Moon's orbit carries it between the Sun and the Earth, at around the same time that it passes new moon.

At the moment of the Moon's perihelion, the Earth will lie at a distance of 1.0167 AU from the Sun, and the Moon will lie at a distance of 1.0140 AU from the Sun.

This distance between the Earth and Moon will be 0.0027 AU (402,000 km).

The positions of the Sun and Moon in the sky will be:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Angular Size
The Moon 06h17m20s 21°44'N Gemini 29'39"
Sun (centre) 06h36m 23°10'N Gemini 31'27"

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

The sky on 30 Jun 2030

The sky on 30 June 2030
Sunrise
05:07
Sunset
20:24
Twilight ends
22:38
Twilight begins
02:53

29-day old moon
Waxing Crescent

0%

29 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 05:39 13:19 21:00
Venus 03:17 10:40 18:04
Moon 04:59 12:35 20:07
Mars 04:24 12:04 19:44
Jupiter 16:07 21:09 02:12
Saturn 02:59 10:15 17:32
All times shown in EDT.

Warning

Never attempt to point a pair of binoculars or a telescope at an object close to the Sun. Doing so may result in immediate and permanent blindness.

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

22 Jun 2030  –  Moon at Last Quarter
30 Jun 2030  –  New Moon
08 Jul 2030  –  Moon at First Quarter
14 Jul 2030  –  Full Moon

Image credit

Simulated image courtesy of Tom Ruen.

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42.38°N
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