The Moon and the stars — September 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)

14 occultations you can see from New Delhi with small telescope (80 mm) this month, on 12 nights · 1111 in all from there

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

Sun

1 9

3 10

1 11

1 12

1 13

1 26

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 Sat 2 Sep

1
00:00:34 HR 8355 V 6.6
Disappears at the dark limb
50° up in the SSW · dark sky · PA 101° · cusp 69°

Night of Wed 6 Sep

1
20:15:52 HIP 3236 V 6.5
Reappears at the dark limb
8° up in the E · dark sky · PA 297° · cusp 32°

Night of Fri 8 Sep

1
22:36:37 HIP 10701 V 7.4
Reappears at the dark limb
23° up in the E · dark sky · PA 278° · cusp 59°

Night of Sat 9 Sep

1
23:58:04 HIP 14767 V 7.2
Reappears at the dark limb
32° up in the E · dark sky · PA 257° · cusp 85°
2
00:09:24 TYC 1231-1180-1 V 7.6
Reappears at the dark limb
34° up in the E · dark sky · PA 318° · cusp 25°
3
04:50:11 HIP 15341 V 7.6
Reappears at the dark limb
82° up in the SW · dark sky · PA 307° · cusp 36°

Night of Sun 10 Sep

1
23:02:10 36 Tau V 5.4
Disappears at the bright limb · reappears 00:00:44 at the dark limb
11° up in the ENE · dark sky · PA 74° · cusp 86°

Night of Mon 11 Sep

1
23:55:23 HIP 23259 V 8.0
Reappears at the dark limb
11° up in the ENE · dark sky · PA 256° · cusp 82°

Night of Tue 12 Sep

1
02:23:40 HIP 28791 V 8.4
Reappears at the dark limb
29° up in the ENE · dark sky · PA 332° · cusp 29°

Night of Wed 13 Sep

1
03:29:45 HIP 34271 V 8.3
Reappears at the dark limb
31° up in the E · dark sky · PA 209° · cusp 23°

Night of Sat 23 Sep

1
19:19:38 HR 6054 V 6.0
Disappears at the dark limb
21° up in the SW · dark sky · PA 82° · cusp 70°

Night of Mon 25 Sep

1
22:08:56 TYC 6848-3934-1 V 8.1
Disappears at the dark limb
13° up in the SW · dark sky · PA 98° · cusp 81°

Night of Tue 26 Sep

1
20:54:21 HIP 94122 V 7.8
Disappears at the dark limb
32° up in the SSW · dark sky · PA 6° · cusp 13°

Night of Wed 27 Sep

1
00:11:36 TYC 6322-1169-1 V 7.6
Disappears at the dark limb
13° up in the WSW · dark sky · PA 14° · cusp 25°

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.