The Moon and the stars — December 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)

27 occultations you can see from New Delhi with small telescope (80 mm) this month, on 18 nights · 1159 in all from there

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

Sun

1 2

2 3

1 4

1 8

1 11

1 12

1 13

2 18

1 19

3 20

3 21

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 1 Dec

1
17:55:34 HR 7291 V 6.2
Disappears at the dark limb
22° up in the SW · dusk · PA 67° · cusp 72°

Night of Thu 2 Dec

1
18:54:13 HIP 99140 V 8.3
Disappears at the dark limb
23° up in the SW · dark sky · PA 50° · cusp 61°
2
20:06:11 HIP 99314 V 7.5
Disappears at the dark limb
10° up in the WSW · dark sky · PA 54° · cusp 65°

Night of Fri 3 Dec

1
18:55:00 HIP 103311 V 7.2
Disappears at the dark limb
32° up in the SW · dark sky · PA 107° · cusp 57°

Night of Sat 4 Dec

1
19:29:03 HIP 107127 V 7.9
Disappears at the dark limb
37° up in the SW · dark sky · PA 70° · cusp 90°

Night of Tue 7 Dec

1
20:29:08 HIP 117858 V 7.3
Disappears at the dark limb
59° up in the SW · dark sky · PA 102° · cusp 56°

Night of Wed 8 Dec

1
21:47:31 HIP 3236 V 6.5
Disappears at the dark limb
57° up in the WSW · dark sky · PA 111° · cusp 48°

Night of Fri 10 Dec

1
03:16:45 26 Ari V 6.1
Disappears at the dark limb
13° up in the WNW · dark sky · PA 118° · cusp 50°

Night of Sat 11 Dec

1
19:37:53 HIP 15072 V 6.8
Disappears at the dark limb
54° up in the E · dark sky · PA 24° · cusp 30°

Night of Sun 12 Dec

1
23:45:35 χ Tau V 5.4
Disappears at the dark limb · reappears 01:00:15 at the bright limb
84° up in the WSW · dark sky · PA 115° · cusp 74°

Night of Mon 13 Dec

1
05:01:22 HR 1889 V 6.5
Disappears at the dark limb · reappears 05:34:14 at the dark limb
30° up in the WNW · dark sky · PA 159° · cusp 22°
2
06:07:44 125 Tau V 5.2
Disappears at the bright limb
17° up in the WNW · dark sky · PA 128° · cusp 15°

Night of Wed 15 Dec

1
22:34:30 HR 2879 V 6.5
Reappears at the dark limb
39° up in the E · dark sky · PA 334° · cusp 34°
2
01:39:17 HIP 37121 V 7.0
Reappears at the dark limb
78° up in the ESE · dark sky · PA 276° · cusp 88°

Night of Fri 17 Dec

1
23:24:11 HIP 46713 V 6.9
Reappears at the dark limb
22° up in the E · dark sky · PA 288° · cusp 88°
2
01:09:50 HIP 47022 V 6.8
Reappears at the dark limb
44° up in the E · dark sky · PA 329° · cusp 51°

Night of Sat 18 Dec

1
01:54:16 TYC 252-130-1 V 7.5
Reappears at the dark limb
40° up in the ESE · dark sky · PA 300° · cusp 82°

Night of Sun 19 Dec

1
01:00:38 HIP 55369 V 7.7
Reappears at the dark limb
15° up in the E · dark sky · PA 11° · cusp 12°
2
01:14:58 Gaia …5675264 V 7.9
Reappears at the dark limb
18° up in the E · dark sky · PA 240° · cusp 36°
3
05:45:08 HIP 55800 V 8.1
Reappears at the dark limb
60° up in the S · dark sky · PA 309° · cusp 75°

Night of Mon 20 Dec

1
04:44:47 TYC 4946-1330-1 V 8.2
Reappears at the dark limb
44° up in the SE · dark sky · PA 258° · cusp 56°
2
04:45:13 HIP 59743 V 8.0
Reappears at the dark limb
44° up in the SE · dark sky · PA 259° · cusp 56°
3
05:44:44 HIP 59848 V 7.9
Reappears at the dark limb
51° up in the SSE · dark sky · PA 256° · cusp 53°

Night of Tue 21 Dec

1
02:18:16 HIP 63610 V 7.3
Reappears at the dark limb
5° up in the ESE · dark sky · PA 322° · cusp 59°
2
06:08:04 HIP 64093 V 8.2
Reappears at the dark limb
43° up in the SSE · dark sky · PA 320° · cusp 60°

Night of Fri 24 Dec

1
05:34:24 Gaia …2716544 V 7.2
Reappears at the dark limb
7° up in the ESE · dark sky · PA 257° · cusp 72°

Night of Fri 31 Dec

1
19:01:01 Gaia …0753280 V 8.1
Disappears at the dark limb
20° up in the WSW · dark sky · PA 4° · cusp 24°

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.