The Moon and the stars — May 2027

Lunar occultations of stars to magnitude 9.5, computed for your location

Every night the Moon slides in front of stars. A star doesn't fade behind it — it switches off, then switches back on at the other edge, often an hour later. Pick your place and what you observe with; the list keeps what you can realistically see.

Naked eye Binoculars Small telescope (80 mm) Telescope (200 mm)

13 occultations you can see from New Delhi with small telescope (80 mm) this month, on 10 nights · 1195 in all from there

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

Sun

1 10

2 11

1 12

1 13

1 18

Times in IST. A night runs from noon to noon, so an event at 01:30 stays with the evening before. On each Moon, the numbered marks show where on the limb each star disappears or reappears.

Night of Sun 9 May

1
21:27:08 HIP 28697 V 7.0
Disappears at the dark limb
10° up in the WNW · dark sky · PA 76° · cusp 79°

Night of Mon 10 May

1
21:03:39 HIP 34266 V 6.9
Disappears at the dark limb
26° up in the WNW · dark sky · PA 45° · cusp 40°
2
22:47:02 HIP 34640 V 7.9
Disappears at the dark limb
6° up in the WNW · dark sky · PA 137° · cusp 49°

Night of Tue 11 May

1
21:08:01 HIP 39711 V 7.7
Disappears at the dark limb
37° up in the W · dark sky · PA 162° · cusp 30°

Night of Wed 12 May

1
22:05:12 Gaia …5402496 V 7.5
Disappears at the dark limb
34° up in the W · dark sky · PA 153° · cusp 43°

Night of Thu 13 May

1
21:14:43 HIP 48921 V 7.1
Disappears at the dark limb
53° up in the WSW · dark sky · PA 139° · cusp 61°
2
23:57:06 HIP 49279 V 7.1
Disappears at the dark limb
18° up in the W · dark sky · PA 91° · cusp 71°

Night of Mon 17 May

1
00:26:59 HIP 65235 V 6.8
Disappears at the dark limb
34° up in the SW · dark sky · PA 91° · cusp 78°

Night of Tue 18 May

1
03:27:47 HIP 69828 V 7.0
Disappears at the dark limb
8° up in the WSW · dark sky · PA 139° · cusp 44°

Night of Thu 20 May

1
20:00:05 2 Sco V 4.7
Disappears at the dark limb · reappears 20:11:38 at the dark limb
7° up in the SE · dusk · PA 33° · cusp 43°
2
22:57:45 π Sco V 2.8
Disappears at the bright limb · reappears 00:30:27 at the dark limb
31° up in the SSE · dark sky · PA 115° · cusp 47°

Night of Sat 22 May

1
21:44:18 3 Sgr V 4.6
Disappears at the bright limb · reappears 22:38:37 at the dark limb
5° up in the SE · dark sky · PA 142° · cusp 48°

Night of Tue 25 May

1
03:10:53 HIP 101192 V 7.1
Reappears at the dark limb
36° up in the SSE · dark sky · PA 182° · cusp 16°

Reading the list

The Moons are drawn from LRO LOLA topography (a 40 KB relief map), lit by the Sun as it is at that moment and turned to the Moon's real libration: north up, east to the left. A dark-limb event — the star vanishing into, or popping out of, the unlit edge of the Moon — is easy to see. At the bright limb only bright stars show against the glare. PA is where on the limb it happens, measured from north through east; the cusp angle is the distance from the nearest horn of the crescent. graze marks a star passing within 3″ of the edge from your place: a few kilometres from a graze line, where it may blink several times behind mountains.

Instrument	dark limb	bright limb
Naked eye	V ≤ 3.0	V ≤ 1.0
Binoculars	V ≤ 6.5	V ≤ 3.5
Small telescope (80 mm)	V ≤ 8.5	V ≤ 5.5
Telescope (200 mm)	V ≤ 9.5	V ≤ 7.0

Those limits are rules of thumb: the dark-limb limit drops by 2.5 magnitudes × (lit fraction − 0.4) in moonglare and by 1 in twilight; events with the Moon under 5° are left out, and daylight events except for the brightest stars. Stars are from Gaia DR3 to G 9.5, with Hipparcos-2 for the brightest and the Yale Bright Star Catalogue for names; the Moon is from the JPL DE431 ephemeris. Times are for the Moon's mean limb, ±2 s — mountains at the edge can move a contact by a few seconds, and much more near a graze.