Mars and 136199 Eris will share the same right ascension, with Mars passing 8°09' to the north of 136199 Eris.
From Cambridge, the pair will be visible in the morning sky, becoming accessible around 21:23, when they reach an altitude of 7° above your eastern horizon. They will then reach their highest point in the sky at 02:38, 46° above your southern horizon. They will be lost to dawn twilight around 06:09, 25° above your south-western horizon.
Mars will be at mag -2.2 in the constellation Pisces, and 136199 Eris at mag 18.8 in the neighbouring constellation of Cetus.
A graph of the angular separation between Mars 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 |
Mars | 01h46m50s | +06°39' | Pisces | -2.2 | 21"4 |
136199 Eris | 01h46m50s | -01°29' | Cetus | 18.8 | 0"0 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 148° from the Sun, which is in Virgo at this time of year.
The sky on 19 September 2020 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
4% 2 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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13 Apr 2020 | – 136199 Eris at solar conjunction |
17 Oct 2020 | – 136199 Eris at opposition |
13 Apr 2021 | – 136199 Eris at solar conjunction |
17 Oct 2021 | – 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.