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 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)

18 occultations you can see from New Delhi with small telescope (80 mm) this month, on 12 nights · 1102 in all from there

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

Sun

1 16

1 17

1 18

1 19

1 26

2 27

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

1
20:43:45 Gaia …2237056 V 8.5
Disappears at the dark limb
16° up in the W · dark sky · PA 127° · cusp 77°
2
21:12:05 HIP 50491 V 8.1
Disappears at the dark limb
9° up in the W · dark sky · PA 162° · cusp 42°

Night of Sun 11 Jul

1
20:23:36 HIP 66663 V 6.7
Disappears at the dark limb
39° up in the SSW · dark sky · PA 60° · cusp 39°

Night of Thu 15 Jul

1
20:23:08 HIP 84297 V 6.7
Disappears at the dark limb
29° up in the SSE · dark sky · PA 78° · cusp 80°

Night of Fri 16 Jul

1
02:54:53 HR 6842 V 4.8
Disappears at the dark limb
11° up in the SW · dark sky · PA 82° · cusp 86°

Night of Sat 17 Jul

1
02:25:10 HIP 94045 V 6.9
Disappears at the dark limb
24° up in the SW · dark sky · PA 350° · cusp 14°

Night of Sun 18 Jul

1
02:08:10 Gaia …2010496 V 6.8
Disappears at the dark limb · reappears 03:07:24 at the dark limb
34° up in the SSW · dark sky · PA 13° · cusp 22°

Night of Mon 19 Jul

1
03:51:49 HR 7964 V 6.2
Disappears at the dark limb · reappears 04:11:41 at the dark limb
31° up in the SW · dark sky · PA 339° · cusp 8°

Night of Wed 21 Jul

1
01:38:20 HR 8500 V 5.8
Reappears at the dark limb
49° up in the SSE · dark sky · PA 282° · cusp 55°

Night of Sun 25 Jul

1
23:50:36 HIP 5631 V 6.9
Reappears at the dark limb
12° up in the E · dark sky · PA 247° · cusp 90°

Night of Mon 26 Jul

1
01:51:10 HIP 9777 V 8.2
Reappears at the dark limb
30° up in the E · dark sky · PA 232° · cusp 71°
2
03:10:43 Gaia …9086848 V 6.6
Reappears at the dark limb
47° up in the E · dark sky · PA 245° · cusp 85°

Night of Tue 27 Jul

1
01:20:06 HIP 13892 V 6.8
Reappears at the dark limb
14° up in the ENE · dark sky · PA 213° · cusp 49°
2
01:20:06 HIP 13892 V 6.8
Reappears at the dark limb
14° up in the ENE · dark sky · PA 213° · cusp 49°
3
01:29:15 HIP 13890 V 8.2
Reappears at the dark limb
16° up in the ENE · dark sky · PA 300° · cusp 45°
4
03:07:11 TYC 1231-491-1 V 8.1
Reappears at the dark limb
37° up in the E · dark sky · PA 188° · cusp 23°
5
03:19:04 HIP 14152 V 7.9
Reappears at the dark limb
39° up in the E · dark sky · PA 287° · cusp 58°

Night of Thu 29 Jul

1
04:03:09 TYC 1853-167-1 V 7.6
Reappears at the dark limb
25° up in the ENE · dark sky · PA 321° · cusp 38°

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.