The Moon and the stars — August 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)

25 occultations you can see from New Delhi with small telescope (80 mm) this month, on 13 nights · 1135 in all from there

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

Sun

2 7

2 8

1 9

2 10

2 11

1 20

1 23

1 24

3 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 Fri 6 Aug

1
19:46:56 Gaia …4481664 V 7.2
Disappears at the dark limb
22° up in the WSW · dusk · PA 104° · cusp 77°
2
21:05:45 21 Vir V 5.5
Disappears at the dark limb
6° up in the WSW · dark sky · PA 100° · cusp 73°

Night of Sat 7 Aug

1
20:07:47 HIP 65319 V 8.5
Disappears at the dark limb
24° up in the SW · dark sky · PA 78° · cusp 54°
2
20:25:05 HIP 65356 V 8.2
Disappears at the dark limb
20° up in the WSW · dark sky · PA 109° · cusp 85°

Night of Sun 8 Aug

1
21:32:19 HIP 69828 V 7.0
Disappears at the dark limb
14° up in the WSW · dark sky · PA 60° · cusp 40°

Night of Mon 9 Aug

1
21:00:48 HIP 74206 V 6.5
Disappears at the dark limb
25° up in the SW · dark sky · PA 118° · cusp 77°
2
22:57:47 HR 5655 V 6.5
Disappears at the dark limb
5° up in the WSW · dark sky · PA 95° · cusp 80°

Night of Tue 10 Aug

1
20:43:45 HIP 78647 V 7.0
Disappears at the dark limb
30° up in the SSW · dark sky · PA 163° · cusp 26°
2
23:29:45 HR 6001 V 5.3
Disappears at the dark limb
8° up in the SW · dark sky · PA 41° · cusp 31°

Night of Wed 11 Aug

1
22:48:32 TYC 6819-740-1 V 7.2
Disappears at the dark limb
21° up in the SW · dark sky · PA 136° · cusp 47°

Night of Thu 19 Aug

1
04:53:22 HIP 116422 V 6.5
Reappears at the dark limb
42° up in the WSW · dark sky · PA 271° · cusp 59°

Night of Fri 20 Aug

1
00:47:22 Gaia …4237568 V 7.0
Reappears at the dark limb
55° up in the SE · dark sky · PA 243° · cusp 89°

Night of Sun 22 Aug

1
00:08:47 HIP 8448 V 7.6
Reappears at the dark limb
34° up in the E · dark sky · PA 297° · cusp 40°

Night of Mon 23 Aug

1
01:56:56 Gaia …5696256 V 7.8
Reappears at the dark limb
48° up in the E · dark sky · PA 296° · cusp 45°

Night of Tue 24 Aug

1
23:16:37 TYC 1798-411-1 V 7.5
Reappears at the dark limb
5° up in the ENE · dark sky · PA 272° · cusp 74°
2
00:54:33 TYC 1799-135-1 V 7.8
Reappears at the dark limb
25° up in the ENE · dark sky · PA 292° · cusp 54°
3
03:28:22 TYC 1799-73-1 V 8.2
Reappears at the dark limb
57° up in the E · dark sky · PA 175° · cusp 8°
4
04:12:18 TYC 1803-486-1 V 8.1
Reappears at the dark limb
67° up in the E · dark sky · PA 222° · cusp 55°
5
05:12:32 18 Tau V 5.7
Reappears at the dark limb
79° up in the ESE · dusk · PA 258° · cusp 89°

Night of Thu 26 Aug

1
01:32:59 TYC 1869-791-1 V 7.9
Reappears at the dark limb
10° up in the ENE · dark sky · PA 256° · cusp 77°
2
01:35:40 TYC 1869-102-1 V 8.2
Reappears at the dark limb
10° up in the ENE · dark sky · PA 205° · cusp 26°
3
04:03:53 TYC 1870-752-1 V 8.5
Reappears at the dark limb
40° up in the ENE · dark sky · PA 282° · cusp 78°

Night of Fri 27 Aug

1
03:00:09 HIP 32743 V 6.8
Reappears at the dark limb
14° up in the ENE · dark sky · PA 319° · cusp 47°
2
04:34:16 HIP 33054 V 7.4
Reappears at the dark limb
33° up in the ENE · dark sky · PA 280° · cusp 87°
3
05:32:48 37 Gem V 5.7
Reappears at the dark limb
45° up in the E · dusk · PA 300° · cusp 68°

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.