© NASA/Voyager 2

Neptune at solar conjunction

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Outer Planets feed

Objects: Neptune
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The sky at

Neptune will pass close to the Sun in the sky as its orbit carries it around the far side of the solar system from the Earth.

At closest approach, Neptune will appear at a separation of only 0°50' from the Sun, making it totally unobservable for several weeks while it is lost in the Sun's glare.

At around the same time, Neptune will also be at its most distant from the Earth – receding to a distance of 30.94 AU – since the two planets will lie on opposite sides of the solar system.

Over following weeks and months, Neptune will re-emerge to the west of the Sun, gradually becoming visible for ever-longer periods in the pre-dawn sky. After around six months, it will reach opposition, when it will be visible for virtually the whole night. A chart of the path of Neptune across the sky in 2017 can be found here, and a chart of its rising and setting times here.

The position of Neptune at the moment it passes solar conjunction will be:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Angular Size
Neptune 22h52m50s 8°02'S Aquarius 2.2"
Sun 22h51m 7°15'S Aquarius 32'16"

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

The sky on 1 Mar 2017

The sky on 1 March 2017
Sunrise
06:14
Sunset
17:45
Twilight ends
19:08
Twilight begins
04:52

3-day old moon
Waxing Crescent

19%

3 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 06:11 11:46 17:20
Venus 07:14 13:45 20:17
Moon 08:19 14:45 21:16
Mars 08:10 14:37 21:03
Jupiter 20:50 02:34 08:18
Saturn 01:52 06:55 11:57
All times shown in PST.

Warning

Never attempt to point a pair of binoculars or a telescope at an object close to the Sun. Doing so may result in immediate and permanent blindness.

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

19 Nov 2016  –  Neptune ends retrograde motion
16 Jun 2017  –  Neptune enters retrograde motion
04 Sep 2017  –  Neptune at opposition
22 Nov 2017  –  Neptune ends retrograde motion

Image credit

© NASA/Voyager 2

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