The Moon and 1 Ceres will make a close approach, passing within a mere 29.2 arcminutes of each other. The Moon will be 15 days old.
From Cambridge , the pair will be visible between 22:10 and 02:42. They will become accessible at around 22:10, when they rise to an altitude of 21° above your south-eastern horizon. They will reach their highest point in the sky at 00:26, 29° above your southern horizon. They will become inaccessible at around 02:42 when they sink below 21° above your south-western horizon.
The Moon will be at mag -12.7; and 1 Ceres will be at mag 7.0. Both objects will lie in the constellation Scorpius.
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 | 16h22m00s | 17°31'S | Scorpius | -12.7 | 32'42"4 |
| 1 Ceres | 16h21m50s | 18°00'S | Scorpius | 7.0 | 0"0 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 173° from the Sun, which is in Taurus at this time of year.
The sky on 10 May 2025
| The sky on 10 May 2025 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
97% 13 days old |
All times shown in EDT.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 May 1996 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 28 Aug 1997 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 27 Nov 1998 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 20 Mar 2000 | – 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.