Jupiter and Mars will share the same right ascension, with Jupiter passing 12' 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 visible in the dawn sky, rising at 02:40 (EST) and reaching an altitude of 28° above the southern horizon before fading from view as dawn breaks at around 06:23.
Jupiter will be at mag -1.9, and Mars at mag 1.4, both in the constellation Libra.
The pair will be close enough to fit within the field of view of a telescope, but will also be visible to the naked eye or through a pair of binoculars.
A graph of the angular separation between Jupiter 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 |
| Jupiter | 15h02m00s | 16°05'S | Libra | -1.9 | 32"8 |
| Mars | 15h02m00s | 16°17'S | Libra | 1.4 | 4"9 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 58° from the Sun, which is in Sagittarius at this time of year.
The sky on 6 Jan 2018
| The sky on 6 January 2018 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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63% 19 days 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.
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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.