Mercury and 136199 Eris will share the same right ascension, with Mercury passing 9°41' to the north of 136199 Eris.
From Cambridge however, the pair will not be observable – they will reach their highest point in the sky during daytime and will be 12° below the horizon at dawn.
Mercury will be at mag 0.8 in the constellation Pisces, and 136199 Eris at mag 18.7 in the neighbouring constellation of Cetus.
A graph of the angular separation between Mercury and 136199 Eris 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 | 01h43m50s | 7°25'N | Pisces | 0.8 | 9"1 |
| 136199 Eris | 01h43m50s | 2°16'S | Cetus | 18.7 | 0"0 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 24° from the Sun, which is in Aries at this time of year.
The sky on 12 May 2017
| The sky on 12 May 2017 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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97% 16 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
| 15 Oct 2016 | – 136199 Eris at opposition |
| 16 Oct 2017 | – 136199 Eris at opposition |
| 16 Oct 2018 | – 136199 Eris at opposition |
| 17 Oct 2019 | – 136199 Eris 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.