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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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, Mars and Mercury 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 11.1° and 10.8° 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
Mars 11.1° east 03:43 1.4 Taurus
Mercury 10.8° east 03:47 0.4 Aries
Venus 18.9° east 03:04 -4.0 Aries
Saturn 28.8° east 02:11 0.5 Pisces
Jupiter 10.7° south-west 21:06 -2.6 Sagittarius

Celestial coordinates

The positions of each of the planets will be:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Venus 02h22m 11°59'N Aries -4.0 13"9
Jupiter 18h31m 23°01'S Sagittarius -2.6 44"9
Mercury 03h16m 14°25'N Aries 0.4 8"1
Saturn 01h26m 6°35'N Pisces 0.5 16"6
Mars 03h37m 19°17'N Taurus 1.4 3"9

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

Next/previous occurrences

« Previous Objects simultaneously visible Next »
25 Apr 2163 All seven planets
05 Jul 2225 All five planets that are
visible to the unaided eye
02 May 2239

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

21-day old moon
Waning Crescent

44%

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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01 Oct 2233  –  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.

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