Neptune's 164.9-year orbit around the Sun will carry it to its closest point to the Sun – its perihelion – at a distance of 29.88 AU.
In practice, however, Neptune's orbit is very close to circular; its distance from the Sun only varies by about 1.7% between perihelion and aphelion. This means that the difference in the amount of heat and light it receives from the Sun between aphelion and perihelion is extremely small.
Finding Neptune
Neptune's distance from the Sun doesn't affect its appearance. From South El Monte, at the moment of perihelion it will be visible in the dawn sky, rising at 02:45 (PDT) – 3 hours and 13 minutes before the Sun – and reaching an altitude of 23° above the eastern horizon before fading from view as dawn breaks at around 04:51.
A chart of the path of Neptune across the sky in 2063 can be found here, and a chart of its rising and setting times here.
The position of Neptune at the moment it passes perihelion will be:
| Object | Right Ascension | Declination | Constellation | Magnitude | Angular Size |
| Neptune | 05h41m40s | 22°06'N | Taurus | 7.9 | 2.2" |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.
The sky on 10 Apr 2026
| The sky on 10 April 2026 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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42% 22 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.
Related news
| 03 Mar 2063 | – Neptune ends retrograde motion |
| 30 Sep 2063 | – Neptune enters retrograde motion |
| 17 Dec 2063 | – Neptune at opposition |
| 04 Mar 2064 | – Neptune ends retrograde motion |
Image credit
© NASA/Voyager 2