Mars and 134340 Pluto will share the same right ascension, with Mars passing 46' to the north of 134340 Pluto.
From South El Monte , the pair will become visible at around 20:54 (PDT), 24° above your western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. They will then sink towards the horizon, setting 3 hours and 21 minutes after the Sun at 23:06.
Mars will be at mag 1.7, and 134340 Pluto at mag 15.7, both in the constellation Gemini.
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 134340 Pluto 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 | 07h32m20s | 23°08'N | Gemini | 1.7 | 4"2 |
| 134340 Pluto | 07h32m20s | 22°21'N | Gemini | 15.7 | 0"0 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 46° from the Sun, which is in Taurus at this time of year.
The sky on 17 Aug 2026
| The sky on 17 August 2026 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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27% 5 days old |
All times shown in PDT.
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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.
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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.