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 evening 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 after sunset. However, Jupiter will be very tricky to see since it will set very shortly after the Sun. To see it you will need to have an exceptionally flat western horizon, for example by observing over an ocean horizon at the coast. At sunset, it will have an altitude of 5.1°.

Additionally, Mercury, Mars and Venus will be quite tricky to see since they will also set shortly after the Sun. They will also be visible only if you have a flat western horizon, clear of obstructions such as buildings or trees. At sunset, they will have altitudes of 10.4°, 14.4° and 13.9° 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 sunset will be as follows:

Planet Altitude
at sunset
Direction
at sunset
Planet
sets at
Mag Constellation
Jupiter 5.1° west 19:15 -1.7 Virgo
Mercury 10.4° west 19:42 0.0 Virgo
Mars 14.4° west 20:03 1.7 Virgo
Venus 13.9° south-west 20:05 -4.6 Virgo
Saturn 19.2° south-west 20:28 0.6 Virgo

Celestial coordinates

The positions of each of the planets will be:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Venus 13h51m 17°58'S Virgo -4.6 41"6
Jupiter 11h57m 1°29'N Virgo -1.7 30"1
Mercury 13h27m 12°05'S Virgo 0.0 6"8
Saturn 13h42m 8°12'S Virgo 0.6 15"7
Mars 12h42m 4°09'S Virgo 1.7 4"0

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

Next/previous occurrences

« Previous Objects simultaneously visible Next »
25 Apr 2163 All seven planets
28 May 2277 All five planets that are
visible to the unaided eye
16 Aug 2295

The sky on 1 Jul 2024

The sky on 1 July 2024
Sunrise
05:42
Sunset
20:08
Twilight ends
21:52
Twilight begins
03:58

25-day old moon
Waning Crescent

17%

25 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 07:07 14:14 21:22
Venus 06:17 13:27 20:38
Moon 01:56 09:02 16:18
Mars 02:21 09:08 15:55
Jupiter 03:34 10:37 17:40
Saturn 23:49 05:35 11:21
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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05 Nov 2277  –  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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