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

A parade of 7 planets in the morning sky

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Inner Planets feed

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The sky at

All seven planets will be above the horizon at the same time, shortly before sunrise.

The planets Neptune and Uranus 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. Neptune will lie in the constellation of Virgo shining at magnitude 8.0; you can find a chart of its position here. Uranus will lie in the constellation of Gemini shining at magnitude 5.6; 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 17.7° south-east 05:00 -0.3 Ophiuchus
Venus 34.0° south-east 03:15 -4.3 Libra
Neptune 45.0° south 01:40 8.0 Virgo
Jupiter 50.1° south-west 22:53 -2.0 Virgo
Mars 50.8° south-west 22:37 0.6 Leo
Saturn 14.0° west 17:59 -0.3 Cancer
Uranus 13.4° west 17:53 5.6 Gemini

Celestial coordinates

The positions of each of the planets will be:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Venus 14h54m 13°43'S Libra -4.3 20"4
Jupiter 11h58m 1°30'N Virgo -2.0 35"9
Mercury 17h25m 21°26'S Ophiuchus -0.3 6"5
Saturn 08h06m 20°22'N Cancer -0.3 20"1
Mars 11h33m 5°28'N Leo 0.6 7"4
Uranus 07h56m 21°14'N Gemini 5.6 3"6
Neptune 14h13m 11°33'S Virgo 8.0 2"2

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

Next/previous occurrences

« Previous Objects simultaneously visible Next »
21 Dec 2022 All seven planets 25 Apr 2163
05 Feb 2119 All five planets that are
visible to the unaided eye
02 Dec 2124

The sky on 29 Mar 2024

The sky on 29 March 2024
Sunrise
06:37
Sunset
19:06
Twilight ends
20:29
Twilight begins
05:14

19-day old moon
Waning Gibbous

81%

19 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 07:13 13:50 20:27
Venus 05:59 11:50 17:40
Moon 22:33 03:45 08:52
Mars 05:12 10:47 16:21
Jupiter 08:29 15:14 22:00
Saturn 05:36 11:18 16:59
All times shown in PDT.

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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20 Mar 2123  –  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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