The Half Moon Buddies Up with Saturn
By Anne Buckle. Published 20-Nov-2024
Don’t miss seeing the Moon and Saturn meet in the night sky for another close approach on December 7, 2024.
Half Moon and Saturn are close on December 7, 2024. Use our Night Sky Map to see the close approach from your location. This is the sky above New York at 20:00 (8:00 pm). (The sizes of the objects are exaggerated to show their positions more clearly.)
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The Moon will pass near Saturn’s position on December 7 in its monthly orbit around Earth, creating a close approach between the two.
Find the Moon in our Night Sky Map
December 7: Half Moon Magic
One of the simplest ways to notice a planet is when it appears next to the Moon in the night sky, and on December 7, Saturn appears close to the Half Moon.
Around this time, the Moon has moved one-quarter in its orbit around Earth since New Moon, giving us a First Quarter Moon on December 8, 2024 at precisely 15:26 UTC.
Looks Different Where You Live?
The Moon’s orientation and its distance from Saturn varies slightly depending on your viewing location on Earth.
This is because, although all observers will see the Moon and Saturn in the evening, 8 pm in New York comes around 16 hours after 8 pm in Sydney. During this time, the Moon has traveled a little bit further in its orbit around Earth.
When can I see the close approach from my location? Search for the Moon in our Night Sky Map, and use the slider and the calendar to find the best time to see the Moon and Saturn meet in the sky.
Your view also depends on whether you are in the Northern or Southern Hemisphere, as the Moon and Saturn’s orientation varies according to latitude.
Stargazing Opportunity
Like Jupiter and Venus, Saturn is one of the easiest objects to spot in the night sky with the naked eye, and you don’t need any extra equipment to see the ringed planet.
Saturn is the farthest planet that can easily be seen unaided, but if you want to take your stargazing up a notch, bring a pair of binoculars.
Now you can can take a closer look at the Moon’s terminator. The terminator is the line on the Moon that separates the dark from the lit-up side, and by looking at it through binoculars, you can explore the mountains and valleys of the Moon’s surface.
Conjunction vs. Close Approach
A close approach—also known as an appulse—is when celestial bodies appear close to each other in the sky. Because the solar system is the shape of a thin disk, Earth, the Moon, and the planets orbit the Sun in roughly the same plane. Sometimes, objects appear close from our perspective, even though they are far apart.
Although conjunction is often used to refer to close groupings of celestial bodies, the technical definition refers to the moment two astronomical objects share the same east-west position in the sky.
Astronomers have several systems for giving the positions of objects in the sky, similar to how positions on Earth can be understood through longitude (an east-west coordinate) and latitude (a north-south coordinate). One of these is the equatorial coordinate system, where the east-west coordinate is called right ascension.