Moon to Occult Jupiter on 6 October as Saturn Reaches Opposition
North America gets one of 2026's best-placed occultations, with Jupiter disappearing behind the Moon's bright limb and returning from its dark edge.
The Moon will occult Jupiter for North America in the early morning hours of Tuesday 6 October 2026, an event centred on 10:16 Universal Time, or 06:16 Eastern Time, with local contact times varying by viewing location. Saturn reaches opposition in the same week. Universe Today, which flagged the pairing, describes the occultation as one of the best-placed and top skywatching events of 2026.
Geometry determines what observers see. The Moon is a waning crescent, roughly 20 per cent illuminated, when it covers Jupiter: the sunlit side of the disk leads as the planet ingresses behind it, and Jupiter reappears from behind the Moon's dark limb, putting entry and exit on opposite edges of the crescent.
The SETI Institute's Planetary Picture of the Day series has recorded closely related events over the past year. On 17 June 2026 it carried a lunar occultation of Venus captured from NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. On 28 August 2026 the Moon slipped deep into Earth's shadow during a partial lunar eclipse visible across much of the Americas, western Europe and western Africa; at maximum, 96.3 per cent of the lunar disk was immersed in Earth's umbra, leaving only a slender portion illuminated by direct sunlight. That view was photographed from southern Louisiana. Lunar eclipses occur when the Sun, Earth and Moon align, allowing Earth to cast its shadow across the Moon's surface.
The next fixed point on the calendar is the occultation itself, centred on 10:16 UT on 6 October, with Saturn's opposition falling in the same week.