The rest of the five visible planets will rise later in the night, beginning with Mars shortly after midnight, followed by Saturn around 4AM, Venus a couple of hours before sunrise, and finally Mercury, which will rise nearly and hour and a half before sunrise.
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But, it’s a big sky up there, and catching all five of the naked-eye planets in the sky at the same time is very unusual. The moon is also slated to appear in the lineup along with other five planets forming a triangle on February 6.
And you won’t even need a telescope or pair of binoculars – but you will get a better chance of seeing Mercury with a pair, and you may even see the rings of Saturn or four of Jupiter’s moons. The advice is not to wait around though, as Mercury will become faint and then hidden below the horizon if budding stargazers leave it too late.
Quite the view: Five planets, Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Mars and Jupiter, will be visible in the sky tonight in a rare spectacle not seen since 2005.
According to the astronomists, the happening will be visible to the naked eye.
To pick out the planets start with Venus, which will be brightest as it is the closest to Earth.
The only true conjunctions that occurred then were caused by the moon passing in front of each of the planets in turn-no gathering like that has occurred since.
This phenomenon is due to the timing of the planets orbiting the sun. The bright stars Antares and Spica will also be visible.
Nichols says you won’t have to wait almost that long or wake up early for the next occurrence: all five will be observable in the evening sky this August.
In this case they are positioned on their orbits in such a way that they form an arc across the same portion of sky.
“These planets are easily seen in our sky because their disks reflect sunlight, and these relatively nearby worlds tend to shine with a steadier light than the distant, twinkling stars”, according to a post from Earth Sky.
The waning gibbous Moon pokes above the eastern horizon around 9 p.m. local time on Wednesday, January 28, just a few minutes after Jupiter.
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All five visible planets to happen to line up is ‘something well worth seeing, ‘ he said.
