The Moon and M44 will make a close approach, passing within a mere 3.5 arcminutes of each other. The Moon will be 17 days old.
From Cambridge , the pair will be visible in the morning sky, becoming accessible around 20:22, when they reach an altitude of 16° above your eastern horizon. They will then reach their highest point in the sky at 02:05, 67° above your southern horizon. They will be lost to dawn twilight around 06:01, 35° above your western horizon.
The Moon will be at mag -12.7; and M44 will be at mag 3.1. Both objects will lie in the constellation Cancer.
They will be close enough to fit within the field of view of a telescope, but will also be visible through a pair of binoculars.
A graph of the angular separation between the Moon 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 |
| The Moon | 08h40m10s | 19°37'N | Cancer | -12.7 | 33'06"7 |
| M44 | 08h40m20s | 19°40'N | Cancer | 3.1 | 108'36"0 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 146° from the Sun, which is in Sagittarius at this time of year.
The sky on 26 Dec 2026
| The sky on 26 December 2026 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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88% 17 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.