Mars and M44 will make a close approach, passing within a mere 37.6 arcminutes of each other.
From Columbus , the pair will become visible at around 21:37 (EST), 53° above your south-western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. They will then sink towards the horizon, setting at 02:29.
Mars will be at mag 1.0; and M44 will be at mag 3.1. Both objects will lie in the constellation Cancer.
They will be a little too widely separated to fit comfortably within the field of view of a telescope, but will be visible to the naked eye or through a pair of binoculars.
A graph of the angular separation between Mars and M44 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 | 08h41m00s | 20°16'N | Cancer | 1.0 | 6"3 |
| M44 | 08h40m20s | 19°40'N | Cancer | 3.1 | 0"0 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 82° from the Sun, which is in Aries at this time of year.
The sky on 5 May 2025
| The sky on 5 May 2025 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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64% 8 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.
Image credit
The Moon in conjunction with Venus and Jupiter, with the Very Large Telescope in the foreground. Image © Y. Beletsky, ESO, 2009.