M8 and 1 Ceres will make a close approach, passing within a mere 7.9 arcminutes of each other.
From Los Angeles , the pair will be visible in the morning sky, becoming accessible around 23:55, when they reach an altitude of 21° above your south-eastern horizon. They will then reach their highest point in the sky at 02:21, 31° above your southern horizon. They will be lost to dawn twilight around 04:31, 23° above your south-western horizon.
M8 will be at mag 5.8; 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 M8 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 |
| M8 | 18h03m40s | 24°22'S | Sagittarius | 5.8 | 0"0 |
| 1 Ceres | 18h03m30s | 24°15'S | Sagittarius | 7.5 | 0"0 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 158° from the Sun, which is in Taurus at this time of year.
The sky on 7 Jul 2024
| The sky on 7 July 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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5% 2 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.
Image credit
The Moon in conjunction with Venus and Jupiter, with the Very Large Telescope in the foreground. Image © Y. Beletsky, ESO, 2009.