Mercury and 136472 Makemake will share the same right ascension, with Mercury passing 4°50' to the south of 136472 Makemake.
From South El Monte however, the pair will not be readily observable since they will be very close to the Sun, at a separation of only 17° from it.
Mercury will be at mag -0.5, and 136472 Makemake at mag 16.8, both in the constellation Ophiuchus.
The pair will be too widely separated to fit within the field of view of a telescope, but will be visible through a pair of binoculars.
A graph of the angular separation between Mercury and 136472 Makemake 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 |
| Mercury | 16h34m20s | 21°16'S | Ophiuchus | -0.5 | 5"2 |
| 136472 Makemake | 16h34m20s | 16°25'S | Ophiuchus | 16.8 | 0"0 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 15° from the Sun, which is in Ophiuchus at this time of year.
The sky on 10 May 2026
| The sky on 10 May 2026 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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36% 23 days old |
All times shown in PDT.
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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
| 30 May 2091 | – 136472 Makemake at opposition |
| 30 May 2092 | – 136472 Makemake at opposition |
| 01 Jun 2093 | – 136472 Makemake at opposition |
| 02 Jun 2094 | – 136472 Makemake 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.