The Moon and the stars — May 2028

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 · 1094 in all from there

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

Sun

1 6

1 15

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 5 May

1
23:54:20 HIP 59108 V 7.3
Disappears at the dark limb
41° up in the SW · dark sky · PA 129° · cusp 68°

Night of Sat 6 May

1
20:51:43 HIP 63220 V 6.4
Disappears at the dark limb
44° up in the SSE · dark sky · PA 124° · cusp 69°

Night of Tue 9 May

1
23:00:09 2 Sco V 4.7
Disappears at the bright limb · reappears 23:46:32 at the dark limb
29° up in the SSE · dark sky · PA 165° · cusp 47°
2
00:35:30 3 Sco V 5.9
Reappears at the dark limb
36° up in the S · dark sky · PA 274° · cusp 62°

Night of Fri 12 May

1
02:28:55 HIP 92780 V 7.3
Reappears at the dark limb
33° up in the SSE · dark sky · PA 247° · cusp 71°

Night of Sun 14 May

1
02:54:48 υ Cap V 5.2
Disappears at the bright limb · reappears 03:49:51 at the dark limb
30° up in the SE · dark sky · PA 118° · cusp 47°

Night of Mon 15 May

1
03:06:14 Gaia …0753280 V 8.1
Reappears at the dark limb
28° up in the SE · dark sky · PA 293° · cusp 49°
2
04:29:20 TYC 5798-1187-1 V 7.1
Reappears at the dark limb
41° up in the SE · dark sky · PA 205° · cusp 43°

Night of Thu 18 May

1
02:38:31 HIP 116422 V 6.5
Reappears at the dark limb
7° up in the E · dark sky · PA 230° · cusp 71°

Night of Fri 26 May

1
20:14:41 TYC 1881-580-1 V 8.2
Disappears at the dark limb
12° up in the WNW · dark sky · PA 120° · cusp 59°

Night of Sun 28 May

1
22:00:18 HIP 40564 V 8.4
Disappears at the dark limb
11° up in the WNW · dark sky · PA 138° · cusp 56°

Night of Tue 30 May

1
20:21:52 HIP 49256 V 8.0
Disappears at the dark limb
49° up in the WSW · dark sky · PA 82° · cusp 61°
2
21:35:14 Gaia …8289024 V 7.3
Disappears at the dark limb
34° up in the W · dark sky · PA 61° · cusp 40°

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.