The Moon and 1 Ceres will make a close approach, passing within a mere 12.5 arcminutes of each other. The Moon will be 15 days old.
From Columbus , the pair will be visible in the morning sky, becoming accessible around 01:34, when they reach an altitude of 21° above your south-eastern horizon. They will then reach their highest point in the sky at 03:10, 25° above your southern horizon. They will be lost to dawn twilight around 04:45, 22° above your south-western horizon.
The Moon will be at mag -12.5; and 1 Ceres will be at mag 7.5. Both objects will lie in the constellation Sagittarius.
They 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 the Moon and 1 Ceres around the time of closest approach is available here.
The positions of the pair at the moment of closest approach will be as follows:
| Object | Right Ascension | Declination | Constellation | Magnitude | Angular Size |
| The Moon | 18h05m30s | 24°24'S | Sagittarius | -12.5 | 30'25"2 |
| 1 Ceres | 18h05m30s | 24°11'S | Sagittarius | 7.5 | 0"0 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 156° from the Sun, which is in Taurus at this time of year.
The sky on 6 May 2024
| The sky on 6 May 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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0% 28 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
| 24 Feb 2009 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 18 Jun 2010 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 16 Sep 2011 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 17 Dec 2012 | – 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.