Mars and 1 Ceres will share the same right ascension, with Mars passing 7°22' to the south of 1 Ceres.
From Cambridge , the pair will become visible at around 21:35 (EDT), 25° above your south-western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. They will then sink towards the horizon, setting 3 hours and 56 minutes after the Sun at 00:09.
Mars will be at mag 0.3, and 1 Ceres at mag 8.6, both in the constellation Virgo.
A graph of the angular separation between Mars 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 |
| Mars | 13h44m00s | 11°43'S | Virgo | 0.3 | 8"2 |
| 1 Ceres | 13h44m00s | 4°21'S | Virgo | 8.6 | 0"0 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 88° from the Sun, which is in Cancer at this time of year.
The sky on 17 May 2024
| The sky on 17 May 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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70% 9 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
| 15 Apr 2014 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 25 Jul 2015 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 20 Oct 2016 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 31 Jan 2018 | – 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.