The Moon and the stars — July 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 back on at the other edge, often an hour later. Pick your place and instrument; the list shows only what you can see.
17 occultations you can see from New Delhi with a small telescope (80 mm) this month, on 12 nights · 1095 in all from there
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 Wed 7 Jul
- 120:43:45 Gaia …2237056 V 8.5Disappears at the dark limb
- 221:12:05 HIP 50491 V 8.1Disappears at the dark limb
Night of Sun 11 Jul
- 120:23:36 HIP 66663 V 6.7Disappears at the dark limb
Night of Thu 15 Jul
- 120:23:08 HIP 84297 V 6.7Disappears at the dark limb
Night of Fri 16 Jul
- 102:54:53 HR 6842 V 4.8Disappears at the dark limb
Night of Sat 17 Jul
- 102:25:10 HIP 94045 V 6.9Disappears at the dark limb
Night of Sun 18 Jul
- 102:08:10 Gaia …2010496 V 6.8Disappears at the dark limb · reappears 03:07:24 at the dark limb
Night of Mon 19 Jul
- 103:51:49 HR 7964 V 6.2Disappears at the dark limb · reappears 04:11:41 at the dark limb
Night of Wed 21 Jul
- 101:38:20 HR 8500 V 5.8Reappears at the dark limb
Night of Sun 25 Jul
- 123:50:36 HIP 5631 V 6.9Reappears at the dark limb
Night of Mon 26 Jul
- 101:51:10 HIP 9777 V 8.2Reappears at the dark limb
- 203:10:43 Gaia …9086848 V 6.6Reappears at the dark limb
Night of Tue 27 Jul
- 101:20:06 HIP 13892 V 6.8Reappears at the dark limb
- 201:29:15 HIP 13890 V 8.2Reappears at the dark limb
- 303:07:11 TYC 1231-491-1 V 8.1Reappears at the dark limb
- 403:19:04 HIP 14152 V 7.9Reappears at the dark limb
Night of Thu 29 Jul
- 104:03:09 TYC 1853-167-1 V 7.6Reappears at the dark limb
Reading the list
The Moon images use LRO LOLA terrain (a 40 KB relief map), lit and tilted as at that moment. North up, east left. Dark-limb events are easy to see: the star vanishes at, or reappears from, the Moon's unlit edge. At the bright limb only bright stars show against the glare. PA is where on the edge it happens, measured from north through east. Cusp angle is the distance from the crescent's nearest tip. graze means the star skims the edge from your place and may blink 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 |
Rules of thumb: the dark-limb limit drops by 2.5 mag × (lit fraction − 0.4) in moonglare and by 1 mag in twilight. Events with the Moon below 5° are left out, and so are daylight events except for the brightest stars. Stars: Gaia DR3 to G 9.5, Hipparcos-2 for the brightest, names from the Yale Bright Star Catalogue. Moon: JPL DE431. Times use the Moon's smooth edge (±2 s). Mountains can shift a contact by seconds, and by more near a graze.