Mars and Uranus will share the same right ascension, with Mars passing 37' to the north of Uranus.
At around the same time, the two objects will also make a close approach, technically called an appulse.
From Cambridge , the pair will become visible at around 18:38 (EST), 26° above your western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. They will then sink towards the horizon, setting 3 hours and 35 minutes after the Sun at 21:06.
Mars will be at mag 1.3, and Uranus at mag 5.9, both in the constellation Pisces.
The pair will be a little too widely separated to fit comfortably within the field of view of a telescope, but will be visible through a pair of binoculars.
A graph of the angular separation between Mars and Uranus 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 | 01h21m20s | 8°34'N | Pisces | 1.3 | 4"6 |
| Uranus | 01h21m20s | 7°57'N | Pisces | 5.9 | 3"4 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 43° from the Sun, which is in Aquarius at this time of year.
The sky on 27 Feb 2017
| The sky on 27 February 2017 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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1% 1 day old |
All times shown in EST.
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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
| 29 Dec 2016 | – Uranus ends retrograde motion |
| 03 Aug 2017 | – Uranus enters retrograde motion |
| 19 Oct 2017 | – Uranus at opposition |
| 02 Jan 2018 | – Uranus ends retrograde motion |
Image credit
The Moon in conjunction with Venus and Jupiter, with the Very Large Telescope in the foreground. Image © Y. Beletsky, ESO, 2009.