Mercury and 134340 Pluto will share the same right ascension, with Mercury passing 1°32' to the south of 134340 Pluto.
From Ashburn however, the pair will not be observable – they will reach their highest point in the sky during daytime and will be no higher than 3° above the horizon at dawn.
Mercury will be at mag -0.4, and 134340 Pluto at mag 14.6, both in the constellation Sagittarius.
The pair will be too widely separated to fit within the field of view of a telescope, but will be visible through a pair of binoculars.
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 | 19h23m20s | -23°10' | Sagittarius | -0.4 | 5"0 |
| 134340 Pluto | 19h23m20s | -21°37' | Sagittarius | 14.6 | 0"0 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 15° from the Sun, which is in Capricornus at this time of year.
| The sky on 24 January 2018 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
47% 7 days old |
All times shown in EST.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 DE405 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
| 10 Jul 2017 | – 134340 Pluto at opposition |
| 12 Jul 2018 | – 134340 Pluto at opposition |
| 14 Jul 2019 | – 134340 Pluto at opposition |
| 15 Jul 2020 | – 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.