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

The Moon will pass in front of Jupiter, creating a lunar occultation visible from South America and 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 Fairfield.

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)
Brazil 05:06–07:49
Peru 04:55–06:46
Bolivia 05:12–06:47
Mauritania 07:26–08:27
Mali 07:27–08:28
Colombia 05:17–06:58
Venezuela 05:36–07:21
Ivory Coast 07:29–08:27
Western Sahara 07:30–08:21
Ecuador 05:03–06:31
Guinea 07:24–08:28
Burkina Faso 07:30–08:28
Ghana 07:31–08:27
Guyana 05:51–07:28
Senegal 07:23–08:27
Chile 05:11–06:21
Algeria 07:40–08:20
Suriname 05:58–07:35
Liberia 07:27–08:26
French Guiana 06:04–07:39
Sierra Leone 07:25–08:27
Argentina 05:30–06:06
Paraguay 05:45–06:18
Guinea-Bissau 07:23–08:27
Gambia 07:23–08:27
Cape Verde 07:16–08:22
Trinidad and Tobago 06:09–07:16
Togo 07:32–08:16
Morocco 07:56–08:00
Niger 07:33–08:16
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 06:20–07:11
Barbados 06:23–07:17
Martinique 06:31–07:07
Saint Lucia 06:25–07:10
Dominica 06:36–07:01
Grenada 06:17–07:11
Bonaire, Saint Eustatius and Saba 06:24–06:34

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

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Jupiter 00h46m50s 3°19'N Pisces -2.8 0'47"

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
14 May 2034 05 Aug 2034 Occultations of Jupiter 28 Sep 2034 28 Sep 2034
14 May 2034 09 Aug 2034 Occultations 05 Sep 2034 05 Sep 2034

The sky on 1 Sep 2034

The sky on 1 September 2034
Sunrise
06:16
Sunset
19:25
Twilight ends
21:02
Twilight begins
04:38

18-day old moon
Waning Gibbous

88%

18 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 08:14 14:13 20:12
Venus 10:08 15:27 20:47
Moon 20:43 02:59 09:23
Mars 05:54 12:36 19:18
Jupiter 20:43 02:57 09:12
Saturn 03:00 10:19 17:37
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

02 Aug 2034  –  Jupiter enters retrograde motion
01 Oct 2034  –  Jupiter at opposition
28 Nov 2034  –  Jupiter ends retrograde motion
09 Sep 2035  –  Jupiter enters 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

Fairfield

Latitude:
Longitude:
Timezone:

41.14°N
73.26°W
EST

Color scheme