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

A parade of 5 planets in the morning sky

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Inner Planets feed

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The sky at

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, Mercury and Venus will be quite tricky to see since they will rise very shortly before the Sun. To see them you will need to have a flat eastern horizon, clear of obstructions such as buildings or trees. At sunrise, they will have altitudes of 12.6° and 15.0° respectively.

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 12.6° south-east 05:29 -0.1 Sagittarius
Venus 15.0° south-east 05:06 -4.0 Sagittarius
Saturn 25.5° south 03:12 0.3 Ophiuchus
Mars 31.0° south 00:45 0.7 Libra
Jupiter 21.1° west 20:18 -2.4 Leo

Celestial coordinates

The positions of each of the planets will be:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Venus 19h12m 21°58'S Sagittarius -4.0 12"0
Jupiter 11h31m 4°36'N Leo -2.4 42"1
Mercury 19h34m 20°58'S Sagittarius -0.1 6"7
Saturn 16h52m 20°51'S Ophiuchus 0.3 15"9
Mars 15h02m 15°42'S Libra 0.7 7"1

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

Next/previous occurrences

« Previous Objects simultaneously visible Next »
22 Jan 1984 All seven planets 16 Jun 2022
30 Dec 2004 All five planets that are
visible to the unaided eye
16 Aug 2016

The sky on 27 Apr 2024

The sky on 27 April 2024
Sunrise
05:42
Sunset
19:39
Twilight ends
21:27
Twilight begins
03:54

19-day old moon
Waning Gibbous

85%

19 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 05:01 11:21 17:40
Venus 05:25 12:03 18:41
Moon 22:55 03:15 07:31
Mars 04:17 10:12 16:07
Jupiter 06:31 13:42 20:54
Saturn 03:54 09:31 15:08
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.

Related news

31 Jan 2016  –  Mercury at highest altitude in morning sky
06 Feb 2016  –  Mercury at greatest elongation west
18 Apr 2016  –  Mercury at highest altitude in evening sky
18 Apr 2016  –  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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