Mars and Uranus will share the same right ascension, with Mars passing 34' to the north of Uranus.
At around the same time, the two objects will also make a close approach, technically called an appulse.
From South El Monte , the pair will become visible at around 21:14 (PDT), 43° above your western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. They will then sink towards the horizon, setting at 00:48.
Mars will be at mag 1.1, and Uranus at mag 5.5, both in the constellation Leo.
The pair will be a little too widely separated to fit comfortably within the field of view of a telescope, but will be visible through a pair of binoculars.
A graph of the angular separation between Mars and Uranus 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 |
| Mars | 10h17m00s | 12°02'N | Leo | 1.1 | 6"0 |
| Uranus | 10h17m00s | 11°28'N | Leo | 5.5 | 3"8 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 76° from the Sun, which is in Taurus at this time of year.
The sky on 18 May 2026
| The sky on 18 May 2026 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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10% 2 days old |
All times shown in PDT.
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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.
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| 13 May 1964 | – Uranus ends retrograde motion |
Image credit
The Moon in conjunction with Venus and Jupiter, with the Very Large Telescope in the foreground. Image © Y. Beletsky, ESO, 2009.