1 Ceres will reach
opposition, when it lies opposite to the Sun in the sky.
Lying in the constellation
Sagittarius, it will be visible for much of the night, reaching its
highest point in the sky around midnight local time.
From Los Angeles, it will be visible between 23:16 and 02:45. It will become accessible at around 23:16, when it rises to an altitude of 21° above your south-eastern horizon. It will reach its highest point in the sky at 01:01, 26° above your southern horizon. It will become inaccessible at around 02:45 when it sinks below 21° above your south-western horizon.
A close approach to the Earth
At around the same time that 1 Ceres passes opposition, it also makes
its closest approach to the Earth – termed its perigee –
making it appear at its
brightest.
This happens because when 1 Ceres lies opposite to the Sun in the sky, the
Earth passes between 1 Ceres and the Sun. The
solar system is lined up with 1 Ceres and the Earth on the same side of the Sun,
as shown by the configuration labelled perigee in the diagram below:
When a planet is at opposition, the solar system is aligned such that the planet
lies on the same side of the Sun as the Earth. At this time, the planet makes its
perigee, or closest approach to the Earth.
Not drawn to scale.
In practice, however, 1 Ceres orbits much further out in the solar system
than the Earth – at an average distance from the Sun of
2.77 times that of the Earth,
and so its
brightness does not vary much as it cycles between
opposition and
solar conjunction.
Observing 1 Ceres
At opposition, 1 Ceres is visible for much of the night. When it lies opposite
to the Sun in the sky, this means that it rises at around the time the Sun sets, and it sets at
around the time the Sun rises. It reaches its
highest point in the sky at
around midnight local time.
But even when it is at its closest point to the Earth,
1 Ceres is so distant from the Earth that
it is not possible to distinguish it as more than a star-like point of light, even through
a telescope.
A chart of the path of 1 Ceres across the sky in 2024 can be found here, and a chart of its rising and setting times here.
At the moment of opposition, 1 Ceres will lie at a distance of
1.89 AU,
and reach a peak brightness of magnitude 7.3.
Its celestial coordinates at the moment it passes opposition will be:
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.
Over the weeks following its opposition, 1 Ceres will reach
its highest point in the sky four minutes earlier each night, gradually
receding from the pre-dawn morning sky while remaining visible in the evening
sky for a few months.
The sky on 6 Jul 2024
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.
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Image credit
© NASA/Dawn 2015
Author: Space and Astronomy News
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