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. However, Venus and Saturn will be very tricky to see since they will rise very shortly before the Sun. To see them you will need to have an exceptionally flat eastern horizon, for example by observing over an ocean horizon at the coast. At sunrise, they will have altitudes of 3.5° and 5.1° respectively.

Additionally, Mercury will be quite tricky to see since it will also rise shortly before the Sun. It will also be visible only if you have a flat eastern horizon, clear of obstructions such as buildings or trees. At sunrise, it will have an altitude of 9.7°.

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
Venus 3.5° east 06:22 -3.9 Aquarius
Saturn 5.1° east 06:13 0.9 Aquarius
Mercury 9.7° south-east 05:46 0.2 Aquarius
Mars 24.5° south 01:48 0.3 Ophiuchus
Jupiter 13.3° south-west 20:57 -2.4 Virgo

Celestial coordinates

The positions of each of the planets will be:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Venus 22h39m 9°54'S Aquarius -3.9 10"1
Jupiter 13h32m 7°58'S Virgo -2.4 42"2
Mercury 22h35m 10°17'S Aquarius 0.2 7"4
Mars 17h28m 22°58'S Ophiuchus 0.3 8"4
Saturn 22h44m 9°39'S Aquarius 0.9 15"6

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
29 Oct 2104 All five planets that are
visible to the unaided eye
03 Oct 2112

The sky on 22 Nov 2024

The sky on 22 November 2024
Sunrise
06:41
Sunset
16:16
Twilight ends
17:55
Twilight begins
05:02


Waning Crescent

48%

21 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 08:36 12:57 17:19
Venus 10:09 14:31 18:53
Moon 22:03 05:23 12:29
Mars 20:40 04:06 11:33
Jupiter 17:14 00:45 08:16
Saturn 13:02 18:32 00:03
All times shown in EST.

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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07 Jun 2112  –  Mercury at greatest elongation east

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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