The Moon and the stars — October 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)

29 occultations you can see from New Delhi with small telescope (80 mm) this month, on 15 nights · 1183 in all from there

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

Sun

2 7

3 8

1 9

1 10

5 11

2 12

2 13

2 14

2 15

1 25

3 26

2 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 Oct

1
21:42:02 HIP 13532 V 7.1
Reappears at the dark limb
28° up in the E · dark sky · PA 219° · cusp 61°
2
23:52:40 ε Ari V 5.2
Disappears at the bright limb · reappears 01:16:06 at the dark limb
56° up in the E · dark sky · PA 46° · cusp 69°

Night of Sat 7 Oct

1
21:24:54 HIP 17572 V 6.9
Reappears at the dark limb
16° up in the ENE · dark sky · PA 242° · cusp 78°
2
21:41:07 HR 1172 V 5.5
Disappears at the bright limb · reappears 22:44:04 at the dark limb
19° up in the ENE · dark sky · PA 64° · cusp 80°
3
23:27:31 HR 1183 V 6.2
Reappears at the dark limb
41° up in the E · dark sky · PA 297° · cusp 47°

Night of Sun 8 Oct

1
05:00:47 Gaia …7061888 V 7.2
Reappears at the dark limb
77° up in the WSW · dark sky · PA 289° · cusp 63°

Night of Mon 9 Oct

1
01:24:04 TYC 1866-1574-1 V 7.5
Reappears at the dark limb
43° up in the E · dark sky · PA 281° · cusp 77°

Night of Tue 10 Oct

1
23:54:32 HIP 31903 V 7.4
Reappears at the dark limb
13° up in the ENE · dark sky · PA 287° · cusp 77°
2
02:29:52 HIP 32367 V 7.2
Reappears at the dark limb
45° up in the E · dark sky · PA 286° · cusp 78°
3
02:45:28 HIP 32431 V 6.5
Reappears at the dark limb
49° up in the E · dark sky · PA 223° · cusp 38°
4
03:17:09 HIP 32491 V 7.8
Reappears at the dark limb
55° up in the E · dark sky · PA 300° · cusp 64°
5
05:12:47 TYC 1894-3077-1 V 8.0
Reappears at the dark limb
80° up in the ESE · dark sky · PA 352° · cusp 13°

Night of Wed 11 Oct

1
01:46:20 HIP 37540 V 7.9
Reappears at the dark limb
23° up in the ENE · dark sky · PA 352° · cusp 18°
2
03:12:41 TYC 1374-326-1 V 8.3
Reappears at the dark limb
42° up in the E · dark sky · PA 4° · cusp 6°

Night of Thu 12 Oct

1
03:25:33 HIP 42598 V 7.8
Reappears at the dark limb
31° up in the E · dark sky · PA 300° · cusp 75°
2
04:21:31 Gaia …6130304 V 7.8
Reappears at the dark limb
43° up in the E · dark sky · PA 325° · cusp 50°

Night of Fri 13 Oct

1
03:13:40 HIP 47143 V 8.2
Reappears at the dark limb
15° up in the E · dark sky · PA 353° · cusp 23°
2
05:01:19 HIP 47336 V 6.7
Reappears at the dark limb
38° up in the E · dark sky · PA 264° · cusp 67°

Night of Sat 14 Oct

1
03:39:09 HIP 51493 V 7.8
Reappears at the dark limb
7° up in the E · dark sky · PA 334° · cusp 44°
2
04:21:00 HIP 51555 V 8.1
Reappears at the dark limb
16° up in the E · dark sky · PA 272° · cusp 74°

Night of Sun 15 Oct

1
05:15:53 HR 4419 V 6.2
Reappears at the dark limb
13° up in the E · dark sky · PA 272° · cusp 77°

Night of Sun 22 Oct

1
19:31:24 HIP 87422 V 7.8
Disappears at the dark limb
17° up in the SW · dark sky · PA 117° · cusp 65°

Night of Tue 24 Oct

1
19:00:34 HIP 97004 V 8.2
Disappears at the dark limb
37° up in the SSW · dark sky · PA 113° · cusp 57°

Night of Wed 25 Oct

1
22:16:53 HIP 101799 V 7.1
Disappears at the dark limb
21° up in the SW · dark sky · PA 102° · cusp 64°
2
22:58:20 HIP 101879 V 7.9
Disappears at the dark limb
13° up in the WSW · dark sky · PA 126° · cusp 39°
3
23:30:11 HIP 101906 V 7.2
Disappears at the dark limb
7° up in the WSW · dark sky · PA 18° · cusp 33°

Night of Thu 26 Oct

1
21:46:15 18 Aqr V 5.5
Disappears at the dark limb · reappears 22:43:48 at the bright limb
36° up in the SW · dark sky · PA 97° · cusp 66°
2
00:00:00 HIP 105856 V 6.7
Disappears at the dark limb
12° up in the WSW · dark sky · PA 9° · cusp 27°

Night of Fri 27 Oct

1
23:02:22 HIP 109378 V 6.5
Disappears at the dark limb
34° up in the WSW · dark sky · PA 355° · cusp 14°

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.