Jupiter and Mercury will share the same right ascension, with Jupiter passing 26' to the north of Mercury.
At around the same time, the two objects will also make a close approach, technically called an appulse.
From South El Monte , the pair will become visible at around 17:29 (PDT), 11° above your south-western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. They will then sink towards the horizon, setting 1 hour and 22 minutes after the Sun at 18:32.
Jupiter will be at mag -2.0, and Mercury at mag -0.8, both in the constellation Capricornus.
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 Mercury 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 | 21h08m50s | 17°06'S | Capricornus | -2.0 | 32"2 |
| Mercury | 21h08m50s | 17°32'S | Capricornus | -0.8 | 6"2 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 17° from the Sun, which is in Sagittarius at this time of year.
The sky on 19 May 2026
| The sky on 19 May 2026 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
12% 3 days old |
All times shown in PDT.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Warning
Never attempt to point a pair of binoculars or a telescope at an object close to the Sun. Doing so may result in immediate and permanent blindness.
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
| 23 Sep 1961 | – Jupiter ends retrograde motion |
| 02 Jul 1962 | – Jupiter enters retrograde motion |
| 31 Aug 1962 | – Jupiter at opposition |
| 29 Oct 1962 | – Jupiter ends retrograde motion |
Image credit
The Moon in conjunction with Venus and Jupiter, with the Very Large Telescope in the foreground. Image © Y. Beletsky, ESO, 2009.