1 Ceres and 134340 Pluto will share the same right ascension, with 1 Ceres passing 7°16' to the south of 134340 Pluto.
From South El Monte , the pair will be visible in the dawn sky, rising at 03:54 (PDT) – 3 hours and 10 minutes before the Sun – and reaching an altitude of 25° above the eastern horizon before fading from view as dawn breaks at around 06:05.
1 Ceres will be at mag 8.8 in the constellation Virgo, and 134340 Pluto at mag 14.6 in the neighbouring constellation of Leo.
A graph of the angular separation between 1 Ceres and 134340 Pluto 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 |
| 1 Ceres | 11h56m40s | 9°11'N | Virgo | 8.8 | 0"0 |
| 134340 Pluto | 11h56m40s | 16°28'N | Leo | 14.6 | 0"0 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 35° from the Sun, which is in Virgo at this time of year.
The sky on 16 May 2026
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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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| 17 Mar 1970 | – 134340 Pluto 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.