1 Ceres's 4.6-year orbit around the Sun will carry it to its furthest point to the Sun – its aphelion – at a distance of 2.99 AU.
In practice, however, 1 Ceres's orbit is very close to circular; its distance from the Sun only varies by about 17.2% 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 1 Ceres
1 Ceres's distance from the Sun doesn't affect its appearance. From Columbus, at the moment of aphelion it will not be observable – it will reach its highest point in the sky during daytime and will be no higher than 11° above the horizon at dawn.
A chart of the path of 1 Ceres across the sky in 1988 can be found here, and a chart of its rising and setting times here.
The position of 1 Ceres at the moment it passes aphelion will be:
| Object | Right Ascension | Declination | Constellation | Magnitude | Angular Size |
| 1 Ceres | 23h46m10s | 12°05'S | Aquarius | 9.1 | 0.0" |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.
The sky on 3 Jun 2024
| The sky on 3 June 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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9% 26 days old |
All times shown in EDT.
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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
| 19 Jun 1987 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 16 Sep 1988 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 18 Dec 1989 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 16 Apr 1991 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
Image credit
© NASA/Dawn 2015