Venus and Mars will share the same right ascension, with Venus passing 17' to the north of Mars.
At around the same time, the two objects will also make a close approach, technically called an appulse.
From Cambridge , the pair will be difficult to observe as they will appear no higher than 14° above the horizon. They will become visible at around 20:48 (EDT), 14° above your western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. They will then sink towards the horizon, setting 2 hours and 24 minutes after the Sun at 22:18.
Venus will be at mag -3.9, and Mars at mag 1.7, both in the constellation Taurus.
The pair will be close enough to fit within the field of view of a telescope, but will also be visible to the naked eye or through a pair of binoculars.
A graph of the angular separation between Venus and Mars 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 |
| Venus | 05h08m40s | 24°06'N | Taurus | -3.9 | 11"7 |
| Mars | 05h08m40s | 23°48'N | Taurus | 1.7 | 3"9 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 28° from the Sun, which is in Aries 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 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.
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| 28 Aug 2003 | – Mars 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.