Neptune and 1 Ceres will share the same right ascension, with Neptune passing 7°24' to the north of 1 Ceres.
From Cambridge however, the pair will not be readily observable since they will lie so far south that they will never rise more than 21° above the horizon.
Neptune will be at mag 8.0, and 1 Ceres at mag 9.2, both in the constellation Capricornus.
A graph of the angular separation between Neptune and 1 Ceres 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 |
| Neptune | 20h37m40s | 18°24'S | Capricornus | 8.0 | 2"2 |
| 1 Ceres | 20h37m40s | 25°48'S | Capricornus | 9.2 | 0"0 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 37° from the Sun, which is in Sagittarius at this time of year.
The sky on 29 Sep 2024
| The sky on 29 September 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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6% 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
| 06 Jul 2001 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 03 Oct 2002 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 08 Jan 2004 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 07 May 2005 | – 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.