Mercury and 134340 Pluto will share the same right ascension, with Mercury passing 9°44' to the south of 134340 Pluto.
From Los Angeles however, the pair will not be observable – they will reach their highest point in the sky during daytime and will be no higher than 11° above the horizon at dawn.
Mercury will be at mag -0.4, and 134340 Pluto at mag 14.5, both in the constellation Ophiuchus.
A graph of the angular separation between Mercury and 134340 Pluto 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 |
| Mercury | 16h36m10s | 20°18'S | Ophiuchus | -0.4 | 6"1 |
| 134340 Pluto | 16h36m10s | 10°34'S | Ophiuchus | 14.5 | 0"0 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 21° from the Sun, which is in Sagittarius at this time of year.
The sky on 30 Sep 2024
| The sky on 30 September 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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2% 27 days old |
All times shown in PDT.
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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 May 1998 | – 134340 Pluto at opposition |
| 30 May 1999 | – 134340 Pluto at opposition |
| 01 Jun 2000 | – 134340 Pluto at opposition |
| 04 Jun 2001 | – 134340 Pluto 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.