$("#dialog").dialog({
autoOpen: false,
height: "auto",
width: "auto",
modal: true,
my: "center",
at: "center",
of: window
})
This solution does work but only because of the newer jQuery versions ignoring this completely and falling back to the default, which is exactly this. So you can just remove position: 'center' from your options if you just want the pop up to be centered.