Conjunction between the Moon and Saturn
2015 Jun 1
Dominic Ford – originally published on In-The-Sky.org
The Moon and Saturn will make a close approach, passing within 1°51' of each other.
From London (click to change), the pair will be visible in the evening sky. They will become visible at around 21:35 (GMT) as the dusk sky fades, 11° above your south-eastern horizon. They will then reach its highest point in the sky at 00:20, 20° above your southern horizon. They will continue to be observable until around 03:38, when they sink to 8° above your south-western horizon.
At the moment of closest approach, the Moon will be at mag -12.6, and Saturn at mag 0.8, both in the constellation Libra.
The pair will be too widely separated to fit within the field of view of a telescope, but will be visible to the naked eye or through a pair of binoculars.
The precise positions of the Moon and Saturn at the moment of closest approach will be as follows:
| Object | Right Ascension | Declination | Constellation | Magnitude | Angular Size |
| The Moon | 15h57m10s | -16°19' | Libra | -12.6 | 30'46"4 |
| Saturn | 15h56m00s | -18°10' | Libra | 0.8 | 18"5 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 169° from the Sun, which is in Taurus at this time of year.
The details of this observing event were provided courtesy of In-The-Sky.org
.