A parade of 5 planets in the morning sky

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Inner Planets feed


All five of the planets that are visible to the unaided eye planets will be above the horizon at the same time, shortly before sunrise.

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 17.1° south-east 05:01 -0.6 Libra
Venus 36.2° south-east 03:02 -4.2 Virgo
Saturn 42.7° south-east 02:19 0.8 Virgo
Jupiter 49.6° south 01:23 -1.8 Virgo
Mars 43.3° west 19:43 -0.4 Gemini

Celestial coordinates

The positions of each of the planets will be:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Venus 12h32m 1°41'S Virgo -4.2 18"5
Jupiter 11h44m 2°52'N Virgo -1.8 32"4
Mercury 14h38m 12°57'S Libra -0.6 6"7
Mars 07h24m 23°24'N Gemini -0.4 11"3
Saturn 12h32m 1°05'S Virgo 0.8 16"2

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

Next/previous occurrences

« Previous Objects simultaneously visible Next »
21 Dec 2022 All seven planets 07 Jan 2123
13 Apr 2036 All five planets that are
visible to the unaided eye
26 Sep 2040

The sky on 21 Nov 2024

The sky on 21 November 2024
Sunrise
06:45
Sunset
16:28
Twilight ends
18:05
Twilight begins
05:09


Waning Gibbous

55%

20 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 08:42 13:07 17:33
Venus 10:12 14:38 19:04
Moon 21:08 04:45 12:10
Mars 20:55 04:18 11:41
Jupiter 17:31 00:58 08:25
Saturn 13:13 18:45 00:17
All times shown in EST.

Warning

Never attempt to point a pair of binoculars or a telescope at an object close to the Sun. Doing so may result in immediate and permanent blindness.

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.

Related news

23 Nov 2039  –  Mercury at greatest elongation west
05 Feb 2040  –  Mercury at greatest elongation east
07 Feb 2040  –  Mercury at highest altitude in evening sky
11 Mar 2040  –  Mercury at highest altitude in morning sky

Image credit

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

Share