The Moon and M45 will make a close approach, passing within a mere 59.5 arcminutes of each other. The Moon will be 18 days old.
From Orlando , the
pair will be visible from soon after it rises, at 21:26, until soon before it sets at 11:25.
The Moon will be at mag -12.5; and M45 will be at mag 1.3. Both objects will lie in the constellation Taurus.
They will be a little too widely separated to fit comfortably within the
field of view of a telescope, but will be visible
to the naked eye or
through a pair of binoculars.
A graph of the angular separation between the Moon and
M45 around the time of closest approach is
available here.
The positions of the
pair at the moment of closest approach will be as follows:
| Object | Right Ascension | Declination | Constellation | Magnitude | Angular Size |
| The Moon | 03h48m40s | 23°09’N | Taurus | -12.5 | 31’26″7 |
| M45 | 03h47m30s | 24°06’N | Taurus | 1.3 | 0″0 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.
The
pair will be at an angular separation of
129° from the Sun, which is in Virgo at
this time of year.
The sky on 3 Oct 2023
Source
The circumstances of this event were computed using the DE430 planetary ephemeris published by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
This event was automatically generated by searching the ephemeris for planetary alignments which are of interest to amateur astronomers, and the text above was generated based on an estimate of your location.
Image credit
The Moon in conjunction with Venus and Jupiter, with the Very Large Telescope in the foreground. Image © Y. Beletsky, ESO, 2009.
