Mercury and 134340 Pluto will share the same right ascension, with Mercury passing 9°51' to the north of 134340 Pluto.
From South El Monte however, the pair will not be observable – they will reach their highest point in the sky during daytime and will be 6° below the horizon at dawn.
Mercury will be at mag -0.2, and 134340 Pluto at mag 16.4, both in the constellation Taurus.
A graph of the angular separation between Mercury and 134340 Pluto 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 | 04h21m20s | 18°56'N | Taurus | -0.2 | 6"9 |
| 134340 Pluto | 04h21m20s | 9°05'N | Taurus | 16.4 | 0"0 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 21° from the Sun, which is in Taurus at this time of year.
The sky on 12 Jul 2026
| The sky on 12 July 2026 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
1% 28 days old |
All times shown in PDT.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Source
The circumstances of this event were computed using the DE440 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
| 27 Nov 2133 | – 134340 Pluto at opposition |
| 29 Nov 2134 | – 134340 Pluto at opposition |
| 30 Nov 2135 | – 134340 Pluto at opposition |
| 30 Nov 2136 | – 134340 Pluto 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.