Neptune and 1 Ceres will share the same right ascension, with Neptune passing 3°57' to the north of 1 Ceres.
From Cambridge , the pair will become visible at around 18:11 (EDT), 47° above your south-western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. They will then sink towards the horizon, setting at 22:58.
Neptune will be at mag 7.9, and 1 Ceres at mag 8.9, both in the constellation Pisces.
The pair will be too widely separated to fit within the field of view of a telescope, but will be visible through a pair of binoculars.
A graph of the angular separation between Neptune 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 |
| Neptune | 01h55m40s | 10°00'N | Pisces | 7.9 | 2"2 |
| 1 Ceres | 01h55m40s | 6°02'N | Pisces | 8.9 | 0"0 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 73° from the Sun, which is in Capricornus at this time of year.
The sky on 2 Jul 2024
| The sky on 2 July 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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10% 26 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.
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| 28 May 2042 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 28 Aug 2043 | – 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.