Neptune and 1 Ceres will share the same right ascension, with Neptune passing 18' to the south of 1 Ceres.
From South El Monte however, the pair will not be observable – they will reach their highest point in the sky during daytime and will be no higher than 8° above the horizon at dawn.
Neptune will be at mag 8.0, and 1 Ceres at mag 8.9, both in the constellation Ophiuchus.
The pair will be close enough to fit within the field of view of a telescope, but will also be visible through a pair of binoculars.
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 | 17h04m40s | 21°24'S | Ophiuchus | 8.0 | 2"1 |
| 1 Ceres | 17h04m40s | 21°05'S | Ophiuchus | 8.9 | 0"0 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 26° from the Sun, which is in Sagittarius at this time of year.
The sky on 2 Sep 2025
| The sky on 2 September 2025 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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75% 10 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.
Related news
| 21 Mar 1977 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 06 Jul 1978 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 03 Oct 1979 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 07 Jan 1981 | – 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.