Neptune and 1 Ceres will share the same right ascension, with Neptune passing 6°56' to the south of 1 Ceres.
From South El Monte , the pair will be visible in the dawn sky, rising at 02:21 (PST) and reaching an altitude of 38° above the south-eastern horizon before fading from view as dawn breaks at around 05:51.
Neptune will be at mag 8.0, and 1 Ceres at mag 8.8, both in the constellation Virgo.
A graph of the angular separation between Neptune and 1 Ceres around the time of closest approach is available here.
The positions of the two objects at the moment of conjunction will be as follows:
| Object | Right Ascension | Declination | Constellation | Magnitude | Angular Size |
| Neptune | 14h20m40s | 12°11'S | Virgo | 8.0 | 2"2 |
| 1 Ceres | 14h20m40s | 5°15'S | Virgo | 8.8 | 0"0 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 54° from the Sun, which is in Sagittarius at this time of year.
The sky on 1 Jan 2026
| The sky on 1 January 2026 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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99% 13 days old |
All times shown in PST.
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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.
Related news
| 08 Jan 1958 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 08 May 1959 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 11 Aug 1960 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 08 Nov 1961 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
Image credit
The Moon in conjunction with Venus and Jupiter, with the Very Large Telescope in the foreground. Image © Y. Beletsky, ESO, 2009.