Mars and 1 Ceres will share the same right ascension, with Mars passing 11' to the north of 1 Ceres.
From South El Monte , the pair will become visible at around 19:47 (PDT), 23° above your south-western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. They will then sink towards the horizon, setting 3 hours and 40 minutes after the Sun at 22:27.
Mars will be at mag 0.4, and 1 Ceres at mag 8.9, both in the constellation Ophiuchus.
The pair 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 Mars and 1 Ceres 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 |
| Mars | 16h39m40s | 24°05'S | Ophiuchus | 0.4 | 7"5 |
| 1 Ceres | 16h39m40s | 24°17'S | Ophiuchus | 8.9 | 0"0 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 76° from the Sun, which is in Virgo at this time of year.
The sky on 31 Jul 2026
| The sky on 31 July 2026 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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95% 17 days old |
All times shown in PDT.
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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.
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Image credit
The Moon in conjunction with Venus and Jupiter, with the Very Large Telescope in the foreground. Image © Y. Beletsky, ESO, 2009.