Neptune and 1 Ceres will share the same right ascension, with Neptune passing 6°03' to the north of 1 Ceres.
From Cambridge however, the pair will not be readily observable since they will lie so far south that they will never rise more than 19° above the horizon.
Neptune will be at mag 8.0, and 1 Ceres at mag 9.2, both in the constellation Sagittarius.
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 | 18h25m20s | 22°19'S | Sagittarius | 8.0 | 2"2 |
| 1 Ceres | 18h25m20s | 28°23'S | Sagittarius | 9.2 | 0"0 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 59° from the Sun, which is in Virgo at this time of year.
The sky on 12 May 2025
| The sky on 12 May 2025 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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99% 15 days old |
All times shown in EDT.
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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
| 18 Jun 1987 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 14 Sep 1988 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 17 Dec 1989 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 15 Apr 1991 | – 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.