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

Lunar occultation of Neptune

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Lunar Occultations feed

Objects: Neptune

The Moon will pass in front of Neptune, creating a lunar occultation visible from the Americas. 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, though it will be visible from eastern parts of the Contiguous United States.

The map below shows the visibility of the occultation across the world. Separate contours show where the disappearance of Neptune 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 Neptune 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 Neptune.

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)
The Contiguous United States 03:49–04:53
Mexico 03:42–04:48
Venezuela 03:57–05:23
Colombia 03:47–05:03
Cuba 03:45–05:03
Guyana 04:23–05:25
Nicaragua 03:44–04:49
Honduras 03:43–04:49
Suriname 04:37–05:36
Guatemala 03:42–04:45
Panama 03:51–04:48
French Guiana 04:44–05:41
Costa Rica 03:47–04:44
Dominican Republic 03:52–05:13
Brazil 04:38–06:52
Haiti 03:50–05:07
Bahamas 03:50–05:04
Belize 03:42–04:47
El Salvador 03:43–04:44
Senegal 05:59–07:12
Jamaica 03:47–04:59
Puerto Rico 03:57–05:18
Cape Verde 05:34–06:59
Trinidad and Tobago 04:13–05:26
Guadeloupe 04:05–05:27
Gambia 06:02–07:11
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 04:09–05:26
Turks and Caicos Islands 03:53–05:08
Mauritania 06:05–07:00
Barbados 04:12–05:30
British Virgin Islands 04:00–05:20
Cayman Islands 03:45–04:53
Martinique 04:07–05:28
Curacao 04:00–05:07
Saint Kitts and Nevis 04:03–05:25
Saint Lucia 04:08–05:27
U.S. Virgin Islands 03:59–05:20
Antigua and Barbuda 04:04–05:26
Dominica 04:06–05:27
Anguilla 04:02–05:24
Bonaire, Saint Eustatius and Saba 04:01–05:23
Grenada 04:10–05:25
Bermuda 04:15–05:05
Montserrat 04:04–05:25
Aruba 03:58–05:05
Sint Maarten 04:02–05:24
Saint Barthelemy 04:02–05:24
Saint Martin 04:02–05:23
Navassa Island 03:49–05:01

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

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Neptune 10h02m10s 12°31'N Leo 7.9 0'02"

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
02 Feb 2083 03 Dec 2091 Occultations of Neptune 26 Jan 2092 21 Mar 2092
24 Dec 2091 24 Dec 2091 Occultations 12 Jan 2092 20 Jan 2092

The sky on 3 Jul 2024

The sky on 3 July 2024
Sunrise
05:22
Sunset
20:28
Twilight ends
22:35
Twilight begins
03:15

27-day old moon
Waning Crescent

4%

27 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 06:57 14:20 21:44
Venus 06:00 13:30 21:00
Moon 02:47 10:46 18:54
Mars 02:04 09:06 16:08
Jupiter 03:09 10:31 17:53
Saturn 23:46 05:28 11:09
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

01 Dec 2091  –  Neptune enters retrograde motion
16 Feb 2092  –  Neptune at opposition
06 May 2092  –  Neptune ends retrograde motion
02 Dec 2092  –  Neptune 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.

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Fairfield

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41.14°N
73.26°W
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