Conjunction of Jupiter and Makemake

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Conjunctions feed


Jupiter and 136472 Makemake will share the same right ascension, with Jupiter passing 2'05" to the south of 136472 Makemake.

From South El Monte , the pair will become visible at around 19:26 (PDT), 23° above your south-western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. They will then sink towards the horizon, setting 3 hours and 28 minutes after the Sun at 21:55.

Jupiter will be at mag -2.0, and 136472 Makemake at mag 16.8, both in the constellation Ophiuchus.

The pair will be close enough to fit within the field of view of a telescope, but will also be visible through a pair of binoculars.

A graph of the angular separation between Jupiter and 136472 Makemake 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 17h06m20s 22°35'S Ophiuchus -2.0 34"4
136472 Makemake 17h06m20s 22°33'S Ophiuchus 16.8 0"0

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 65° from the Sun, which is in Virgo at this time of year.

The sky on 20 Jun 2026

The sky on 20 June 2026
Sunrise
05:38
Sunset
20:06
Twilight ends
21:51
Twilight begins
03:53


Waxing Crescent

39%

5 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 07:29 14:34 21:39
Venus 08:39 15:40 22:40
Moon 11:52 18:12 00:22
Mars 03:28 10:22 17:17
Jupiter 07:51 14:54 21:58
Saturn 01:38 07:49 14:00
All times shown in PDT.

Source

The circumstances of this event were computed using the DE440 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

10 Jun 2102  –  136472 Makemake at opposition
12 Jun 2103  –  136472 Makemake at opposition
12 Jun 2104  –  136472 Makemake at opposition
13 Jun 2105  –  136472 Makemake 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.

Share