© NASA/Dawn 2015

1 Ceres at solar conjunction

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Dwarf Planets feed

Objects: 1 Ceres
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The sky at

1 Ceres 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, 1 Ceres will appear at a separation of only 7° from the Sun, making it totally unobservable for several weeks while it is lost in the Sun's glare.

At around the same time, 1 Ceres will also be at its most distant from the Earth – receding to a distance of 3.96 AU – since the two planets will lie on opposite sides of the solar system.

Over following weeks and months, 1 Ceres 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 1 Ceres across the sky in 2025 can be found here, and a chart of its rising and setting times here.

The position of 1 Ceres at the moment it passes solar conjunction will be:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Angular Size
1 Ceres 22h03m40s 19°39'S Aquarius 0.0"
Sun 21h53m 12°49'S Capricornus 32'23"

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

The sky on 14 Feb 2025

The sky on 14 February 2025
Sunrise
06:30
Sunset
17:32
Twilight ends
18:55
Twilight begins
05:07

16-day old moon
Waning Gibbous

92%

16 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 06:51 12:20 17:48
Venus 08:05 14:24 20:43
Moon 18:53 01:20 07:39
Mars 14:06 21:23 04:40
Jupiter 11:43 18:45 01:47
Saturn 07:42 13:29 19:15
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

05 Jul 2024  –  1 Ceres at opposition
02 Oct 2025  –  1 Ceres at opposition
07 Jan 2027  –  1 Ceres at opposition
06 May 2028  –  1 Ceres at opposition

Image credit

© NASA/Dawn 2015

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