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

Lunar occultation of Saturn

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Lunar Occultations feed

Objects: Saturn

The Moon will pass in front of Saturn, creating a lunar occultation visible from Africa, Europe and eastern Brazil. 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 Saturn 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 Saturn 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 Saturn.

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)
Algeria 03:27–05:35
Mali 03:00–04:51
Mauritania 03:01–04:49
Niger 03:24–05:10
Brazil 02:36–03:34
Libya 03:56–05:40
France 04:13–05:37
Spain 03:52–05:27
Morocco 03:27–05:10
Ivory Coast 03:03–04:11
Western Sahara 03:09–04:46
Burkina Faso 03:09–04:28
Guinea 02:55–04:14
Senegal 02:55–04:18
Tunisia 04:01–05:40
Ghana 03:16–04:13
Portugal 03:53–05:04
Liberia 02:57–04:03
Sierra Leone 02:55–04:06
Nigeria 03:39–04:22
Italy 04:13–05:45
Benin 03:28–04:16
Chad 04:15–05:11
Great Britain 04:37–05:15
Guinea-Bissau 02:54–04:11
Togo 03:25–04:12
The Canary Islands 03:25–04:39
Corsica 04:19–05:40
Gambia 02:56–04:13
Cape Verde 02:55–04:07
Mallorca 04:06–05:26
Switzerland 04:27–05:35
Menorca 04:09–05:28
Ibiza 04:04–05:21
Andorra 04:14–05:23
Malta 04:18–05:45
Jersey 04:35–05:10
Guernsey 04:36–05:08
Melilla 03:51–05:09
Gibraltar 03:52–05:04
Monaco 04:22–05:36
Madeira 03:41–04:36
The Savage Islands 03:31–04:35
Isla de Alborán 03:53–05:09
Islas Chafarinas 03:52–05:10

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

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Saturn 03h06m20s 15°01'N Aries -0.0 0'18"

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 Oct 2054 14 Jul 2058 Occultations of Saturn 07 Sep 2058 01 Nov 2058
12 May 2058 02 Aug 2058 Occultations 27 Aug 2058 26 Sep 2058

The sky on 18 Jun 2024

The sky on 18 June 2024
Sunrise
05:17
Sunset
20:28
Twilight ends
22:37
Twilight begins
03:08

12-day old moon
Waxing Gibbous

89%

12 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 05:34 13:14 20:53
Venus 05:34 13:09 20:44
Moon 17:23 22:16 03:02
Mars 02:33 09:22 16:11
Jupiter 03:57 11:17 18:36
Saturn 00:45 06:26 12:08
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

31 Dec 2057  –  Saturn ends retrograde motion
31 Aug 2058  –  Saturn enters retrograde motion
08 Nov 2058  –  Saturn at opposition
13 Jan 2059  –  Saturn 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.

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Fairfield

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41.14°N
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