 Vesta orbits the Sun in 3.63 years and Ceres in 4.6 years, so every 17.4 years Vesta overtakes Ceres (the previous overtaking was in April 1996).On 1 December 2012, Vesta had a magnitude of 6.6, but it had decreased to 8.4 by 1 May 2013.Ceres and Vesta came within one degree of each other in the night sky in July 2014.