Mars and Mercury will share the same right ascension, with Mars passing 5°48' to the north of Mercury.
From South El Monte however, the pair will not be readily observable since they will be very close to the Sun, at a separation of only 13° from it.
Mars will be at mag 1.8, and Mercury at mag 2.6, both in the constellation Leo.
The pair will be too widely separated to fit within the field of view of a telescope or pair of binoculars, but will be visible to the naked eye.
A graph of the angular separation between Mars and Mercury 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 | 09h31m00s | 15°55'N | Leo | 1.8 | 3"5 |
Mercury | 09h31m00s | 10°06'N | Leo | 2.6 | 10"9 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 13° from the Sun, which is in Cancer at this time of year.
The sky on 27 Sep 2025
The sky on 27 September 2025 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
37% 6 days old |
All times shown in PDT.
|
Warning
Never attempt to point a pair of binoculars or a telescope at an object close to the Sun. Doing so may result in immediate and permanent blindness.
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
09 Sep 1971 | – Mars ends retrograde motion |
19 Sep 1973 | – Mars enters retrograde motion |
16 Oct 1973 | – Mars at perigee |
24 Oct 1973 | – Mars 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.