The Moon and 1 Ceres will make a close approach, passing within a mere 22.0 arcminutes of each other. The Moon will be 11 days old.
From South El Monte , the pair will be visible in the evening sky, becoming accessible around 18:08 (PST), 58° above your eastern horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. They will then reach their highest point in the sky at 20:13, 74° above your southern horizon. They will continue to be observable until around 01:15, when they sink below 21° above your western horizon.
The Moon will be at mag -12.4; and 1 Ceres will be at mag 7.9. Both objects will lie in the constellation Taurus.
They 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 the Moon and 1 Ceres around the time of closest approach is available here.
The positions of the pair at the moment of closest approach will be as follows:
| Object | Right Ascension | Declination | Constellation | Magnitude | Angular Size |
| The Moon | 03h47m40s | 19°10'N | Taurus | -12.4 | 30'19"7 |
| 1 Ceres | 03h47m50s | 18°48'N | Taurus | 7.9 | 0"0 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 126° from the Sun, which is in Sagittarius at this time of year.
The sky on 29 Dec 2025
| The sky on 29 December 2025 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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77% 10 days old |
All times shown in PST.
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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
| 28 Nov 1975 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 22 Mar 1977 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 07 Jul 1978 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 03 Oct 1979 | – 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.