Mars and M8 will make a close approach, passing within a mere 43.2 arcminutes of each other.
From Cambridge however, the pair will not be observable – they will reach their highest point in the sky during daytime and will be no higher than 14° above the horizon at dawn.
Mars will be at mag 1.2; and M8 will be at mag 5.8. Both objects will lie in the constellation Sagittarius.
They will be a little too widely separated to fit comfortably within the field of view of a telescope, but will be visible through a pair of binoculars.
A graph of the angular separation between Mars and M8 around the time of closest approach is available here.
The positions of the pair at the moment of closest approach will be as follows:
| Object | Right Ascension | Declination | Constellation | Magnitude | Angular Size |
| Mars | 18h03m40s | 23°39'S | Sagittarius | 1.2 | 5"1 |
| M8 | 18h03m40s | 24°22'S | Sagittarius | 5.8 | 0"0 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 57° from the Sun, which is in Aquarius at this time of year.
The sky on 17 Feb 2020
| The sky on 17 February 2020 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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22% 24 days old |
All times shown in EST.
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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.
Image credit
The Moon in conjunction with Venus and Jupiter, with the Very Large Telescope in the foreground. Image © Y. Beletsky, ESO, 2009.