Ceres will be at opposition on 25 February 2009 when it will be at its brightest, magnitude 6.9. Due to the inclination of its orbit, it will not be due north at local midnight until a few days later on 2 March 2009. The asteroid is at conjunction with the Sun on 31 October 2009, and too close to the Sun for observation about a month or more either side of this date.

On 17 January 2009, Ceres reaches a stationary point in Leo. In the days that follow, Ceres will start moving in a retrograde sense to the west leading up to its opposition. It reaches a second stationary point 3 months later on 17 April when the westerly movement of Ceres will cease and it will recommence moving in a forward direction to the east.

At the end of October, Ceres is at conjunction with the Sun. As a result the minor planet will not be observable from late September when it will set shortly after the Sun in the evening. After conjunction Ceres will rise in the morning sky before the Sun, but will remain lost in the morning twilight until the very end of December.

At opposition, Ceres will be well north of the equator and so low in the sky for southern hemisphere observers. By the end of March the minor planet will be moving to the south and so get higher in southern skies during the rest of the year. It crosses the celestial equator into the southern hemisphere early in September.

As its number implies, Ceres was the first Minor Planet or Asteroid to be discovered. It was discovered by G Piazzi at Palermo in Sicily being first seen by him on 1 January 1801.

Ceres has a diameter of 932.6 km and is easily the largest inner asteroid, although recently a number of larger Kuiper belt objects have been discovered. At its 2006 meeting in Prague, the IAU voted that Ceres should be one of the group of "Dwarf Planets". It is the only asteroid that is large enough to be pulled into a spherical shape by its gravity.

Ceres's orbital period is 4.60 years, its distance from the Sun varying between 2.55 and 2.98 AU. The orbit is inclined at 10.6° to the ecliptic.