The Moon and 1 Ceres will make a close approach, passing within a mere 27.9 arcminutes of each other. The Moon will be 18 days old.
From Cambridge , the pair will be visible in the morning sky, becoming accessible around 00:20, when they reach an altitude of 21° above your south-eastern horizon. They will then reach their highest point in the sky at 02:39, 30° above your southern horizon. They will be lost to dawn twilight around 04:16, 25° above your south-western horizon.
The Moon will be at mag -12.7; and 1 Ceres will be at mag 7.5. Both objects will lie in the constellation Ophiuchus.
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 | 16h48m20s | 18°03'S | Ophiuchus | -12.7 | 32'29"9 |
| 1 Ceres | 16h48m30s | 17°36'S | Ophiuchus | 7.5 | 0"0 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 152° from the Sun, which is in Aries at this time of year.
The sky on 2 Oct 2024
| The sky on 2 October 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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0% 29 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
| 31 Jan 1995 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 29 May 1996 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 29 Aug 1997 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 27 Nov 1998 | – 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.