Saturn and Mars will share the same right ascension, with Saturn passing 41' to the north of Mars.
At around the same time, the two objects will also make a close approach, technically called an appulse.
From Cambridge , the pair will be difficult to observe as they will appear no higher than 13° above the horizon. They will become visible at around 21:20 (EDT), 13° above your western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. They will then sink towards the horizon, setting 2 hours and 17 minutes after the Sun at 22:39.
Saturn will be at mag 0.6, and Mars at mag 1.7, both in the constellation Leo.
The pair will be a little too widely separated to fit comfortably within the field of view of a telescope, but will be visible to the naked eye or through a pair of binoculars.
A graph of the angular separation between Saturn and Mars 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 |
| Saturn | 10h31m10s | 11°06'N | Leo | 0.6 | 16"6 |
| Mars | 10h31m10s | 10°24'N | Leo | 1.7 | 4"3 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 46° from the Sun, which is in Gemini at this time of year.
The sky on 8 Jul 2024
| The sky on 8 July 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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8% 3 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.
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Image credit
The Moon in conjunction with Venus and Jupiter, with the Very Large Telescope in the foreground. Image © Y. Beletsky, ESO, 2009.