Rare Occultation of Saturn by the Moon visible in Sri Lanka

The Occultation of any Planet by the Moon is a rare event that can be seen even with the naked eye, although a telescope will give a more spectacular view.

Any particular occultation will only be visible for a very limited region of the Earth as shown for this event. 

The Occultation of Saturn by the bright limb Moon on the night of 2024 July 24th will start at 00:50:30 and will take about 45 seconds to cut across the disc of Saturn.

Egress from the dark limb will be at 02:08:20. These times computed for Colombo will be a few minutes different in other parts of Sri Lanka. In Galle in the south about 2 min before, in Jaffna in the North about 6 min after Batticaloa in the East about 4 min after.

Saturn's Rings are almost edge-on and will not be clearly visible. Few of the Brighter Satellites like Titan will be visible in a small Telescope or large Binoculars and will also be occulted.

The simulated images of what will be seen were done using the Software Stellarium which can be downloaded for free and installed on a PC or smartphone.

The last Visible Occultation of Saturn visible from Sri Lanka was on 2001 October 7, there is another opportunity to see it on 2024 Oct 14th, but after that only in 2036 Sept. 18th. The occultations visible from Sri Lanka of Mars on 2021 April 17 and Venus on 2023 March 24 have passed without any attention given to these events. A Mars event will not be visible again till 2052 Sept 12th and Venus next on 2026 Sept 14th. Jupiter was last visible on 1998 Oct 31, next is on 2026 Nov 2nd. Seems to be once in 20 to 30-year opportunity for a Lunar occultation of each planet to be visible from Sri Lanka and we should give more attention to these rare events. 

So take a look if the weather permits.

Dr Kavan Ratnatunga (Astronomer)