The Moon and the stars — August 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)

21 occultations you can see from New Delhi with small telescope (80 mm) this month, on 14 nights · 1208 in all from there

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

Sun

1 3

1 4

2 5

2 6

3 14

2 15

1 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 2 Aug

1
19:55:12 HR 7035 V 5.8
Disappears at the dark limb
26° up in the SE · dusk · PA 94° · cusp 78°

Night of Thu 3 Aug

1
03:48:35 Gaia …9732736 V 6.7
Disappears at the dark limb
8° up in the WSW · dark sky · PA 353° · cusp 4°

Night of Fri 4 Aug

1
20:49:27 ο Cap V 6.7
Disappears at the dark limb
25° up in the SE · dark sky · PA 69° · cusp 81°
2
20:50:27 ο Cap V 6.0
Disappears at the dark limb
25° up in the SE · dark sky · PA 69° · cusp 80°

Night of Sat 5 Aug

1
00:04:18 HIP 105315 V 7.0
Reappears at the dark limb
47° up in the SSE · dark sky · PA 216° · cusp 73°
2
03:23:57 18 Aqr V 5.5
Disappears at the bright limb · reappears 04:13:33 at the dark limb
34° up in the SW · dark sky · PA 5° · cusp 43°

Night of Sun 6 Aug

1
04:22:02 HIP 109369 V 7.0
Reappears at the dark limb
35° up in the SW · dark sky · PA 230° · cusp 80°

Night of Tue 8 Aug

1
22:48:39 HIP 116034 V 7.2
Reappears at the dark limb
28° up in the ESE · dark sky · PA 195° · cusp 43°
2
04:21:23 16 Psc V 5.7
Reappears at the dark limb
56° up in the SW · dark sky · PA 205° · cusp 54°

Night of Fri 11 Aug

1
02:38:51 HIP 8448 V 7.6
Reappears at the dark limb
58° up in the ESE · dark sky · PA 254° · cusp 84°

Night of Sun 13 Aug

1
01:08:14 66 Ari V 6.1
Reappears at the dark limb
21° up in the ENE · dark sky · PA 237° · cusp 70°
2
04:01:26 TYC 1798-480-1 V 7.2
Reappears at the dark limb
57° up in the E · dark sky · PA 254° · cusp 87°
3
04:03:44 TYC 1798-1091-1 V 7.6
Reappears at the dark limb
58° up in the E · dark sky · PA 257° · cusp 90°

Night of Mon 14 Aug

1
04:27:48 HIP 21103 V 8.5
Reappears at the dark limb
52° up in the E · dark sky · PA 209° · cusp 36°
2
05:20:31 HIP 21174 V 7.5
Reappears at the dark limb
63° up in the E · dusk · PA 232° · cusp 59°

Night of Tue 15 Aug

1
04:06:54 HIP 25793 V 8.3
Reappears at the dark limb
36° up in the ENE · dark sky · PA 188° · cusp 9°

Night of Thu 17 Aug

1
04:30:58 HIP 36663 V 6.8
Reappears at the dark limb
15° up in the ENE · dark sky · PA 224° · cusp 35°

Night of Wed 23 Aug

1
20:03:40 HIP 62217 V 8.2
Disappears at the dark limb
6° up in the WSW · dark sky · PA 31° · cusp 1°

Night of Sat 26 Aug

1
21:09:20 HIP 76578 V 8.0
Disappears at the dark limb
17° up in the SW · dark sky · PA 129° · cusp 65°

Night of Sun 27 Aug

1
22:41:41 TYC 6800-2110-1 V 7.7
Disappears at the dark limb
10° up in the SW · dark sky · PA 71° · cusp 64°
2
22:54:29 HIP 81621 V 7.9
Disappears at the dark limb
7° up in the SW · dark sky · PA 137° · cusp 51°

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.