A parade of 7 planets in the morning sky

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Inner Planets feed


All seven planets will be above the horizon at the same time, shortly before sunrise. However, Mercury will be quite tricky to see since it will rise very shortly before the Sun. To see it you will need to have a flat eastern horizon, clear of obstructions such as buildings or trees. At sunrise, it will have an altitude of 12.2°.

The planets Uranus and Neptune are too faint to be seen with the unaided eye, and a pair of binoculars or a small telescope is needed to see them. Additionally, since they are no brighter than many stars, a finder-chart is needed to show their positions relative to the surrounding stars. Uranus will lie in the constellation of Aries shining at magnitude 5.9; you can find a chart of its position here. Neptune will lie in the constellation of Pisces shining at magnitude 7.9; you can find a chart of its position here.

It is relatively rare for all of the planets to be aligned in one hemisphere so as to all be above the horizon at the same moment. Such an alignment between the five planets which are visible to the unaided eye happens roughly once every 6 years, while an alignment that also includes Uranus and Neptune, which require binoculars or a telescope to be seen, happens around once every 70 years.

However, since the planets in the outer solar system – especially Saturn, Uranus and Neptune – move quite slowly through the constellations, such alignments can occur multiple times in quick succession, or not at all for over 100 years.

The positions of all the planets at sunrise will be as follows:

Planet Altitude
at sunrise
Direction
at sunrise
Planet
rises at
Mag Constellation
Mercury 12.2° east 04:04 0.4 Taurus
Venus 19.3° east 03:26 -3.9 Aries
Uranus 28.1° east 02:41 5.9 Aries
Mars 38.9° south-east 01:41 0.6 Pisces
Jupiter 42.7° south-east 01:04 -2.4 Pisces
Neptune 42.9° south-east 00:38 7.9 Pisces
Saturn 33.6° south 23:25 0.5 Capricornus

Celestial coordinates

The positions of each of the planets will be:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Venus 03h20m 16°33'N Aries -3.9 12"6
Jupiter 00h22m 1°06'N Pisces -2.4 38"1
Mercury 04h04m 17°13'N Taurus 0.4 8"1
Saturn 21h50m 14°20'S Capricornus 0.5 17"8
Mars 01h02m 4°45'N Pisces 0.6 6"8
Uranus 02h57m 16°30'N Aries 5.9 3"4
Neptune 23h43m 3°01'S Pisces 7.9 2"2

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

Next/previous occurrences

« Previous Objects simultaneously visible Next »
22 Jan 1984 All seven planets 21 Dec 2022
16 Aug 2016 All five planets that are
visible to the unaided eye
21 Dec 2022

The sky on 23 Jun 2022

The sky on 23 June 2022
Sunrise
05:18
Sunset
20:29
Twilight ends
22:38
Twilight begins
03:09


Waning Crescent

17%

24 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 04:06 11:22 18:37
Venus 03:28 10:40 17:52
Moon 02:04 08:40 15:27
Mars 01:41 08:08 14:35
Jupiter 01:04 07:12 13:20
Saturn 23:25 04:36 09:47
All times shown in EDT.

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

The Moon in conjunction with Venus and Jupiter, with the Very Large Telescope in the foreground. Image © Y. Beletsky, ESO, 2009.

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