Neptune and 1 Ceres will share the same right ascension, with Neptune passing 7°25' to the north 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 13° above the horizon at dusk.
Neptune will be at mag 8.0, and 1 Ceres at mag 9.3, both in the constellation Capricornus.
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 | 20h37m40s | 18°24'S | Capricornus | 8.0 | 2"2 |
| 1 Ceres | 20h37m40s | 25°50'S | Capricornus | 9.3 | 0"0 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 38° from the Sun, which is in Sagittarius at this time of year.
The sky on 18 Feb 2026
| The sky on 18 February 2026 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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2% 1 day old |
All times shown in PST.
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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
| 07 Jul 2001 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 03 Oct 2002 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 09 Jan 2004 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 08 May 2005 | – 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.