October 6, 2026: Watch the waning crescent moon occult Jupiter before sunrise. See disappearance and reappearance times for major North American cities.
by Jeffrey L. Hunt
Chicago, Illinois: Sunrise, 6:55 a.m. CDT; Sunset, 6:26 p.m. CDT. Times are calculated by the US Naval Observatory’s MICA computer program. Check local sources for sunrise and sunset times.
Moon Occults Jupiter
This morning, the crescent moon occults (eclipses) Jupiter. The event occurs during the early morning across eastern North America, the northern Caribbean basin, and western Africa. Locations farther westward see the end of the occultation when the moon uncovers the planet.
An occultation is a type of eclipse, when a larger body, the moon, crosses in front of a more-distant celestial body, blocking our view of it. The event occurs when the moon is in a waning crescent phase, rising over four hours before sunrise. The occultation begins when the moon is low in the sky in eastern North America and below the horizon for western areas.
The occultation can be viewed without optical assistance or at low powers through a binocular or spotting scope. Higher telescopic powers greatly reduce the field of view.
What to See
The occultation begins when the moon’s eastern limb (edge), the illuminated side, covers the planet. The bright lunar limb makes Jupiter’s disappearance more difficult to see than its reappearance. For the next hour, as the moon rises higher in the eastern sky, it slowly passes in front of Jupiter. Then Jupiter reappears at the western limb that is not illuminated.
The moon’s eastward motion carries the lunar orb away from Jupiter as morning twilight begins.
An hour before sunrise, after the occultation, the crescent moon appears to Jupiter’s lower left. Look for earthshine on the moon. This effect is sunlight reflected from Earth’s clouds, oceans, and land that softly illuminates the lunar night. This is a photogenic sight. Use a tripod-mounted camera or a steady camera phone to take photos with exposures up to 10 seconds.
Occultations of Jupiter by the moon for any one location are rare, even though Jupiter and the moon appear close together in the sky each month. They occur in a sequence of about a half dozen events every two to three years. For North America, a lunar occultation of Jupiter occurs again during the predawn hours of November 27, 2037, when the moon is 80% illuminated.
When to See the Occultation
For this morning’s occultation, here is a table of disappearance and reappearance times for select cities. (Find your city’s times in the IOTA table. The disappearance and reappearance times are listed in Universal Time (UT). Subtract four hours for EDT, five hours for CDT, and so on.)
| City | Jupiter Disappears (local time) | Jupiter Reappears |
| Atlanta | 4:15 a.m. | 5:16 a.m. |
| Boston | 4:26 | 5:29 |
| Chicago | 3:22 | 4:17 |
| Miami | 4:20 | 5:09 |
| Nashville | 3:16 | 4:16 |
| New York City | 4:23 | 5:27 |
| Toronto | 4:25 | 5:22 |
| Winnipeg | 3:45 | 4:03 |
Set an early alarm to see one of the year’s most interesting moon-planet events.
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