Matias Delacroix/AP/File
A telescope could help detect Uranus and Neptune as they appear to align with other planets early Monday morning in most parts of the world; Sunday is ideal for spectators in North America and Europe.
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A ‘planet parade’ is coming where six planets will appear in the sky by sunrise, but only three planets will be visible to the naked eye – and the phenomenon is more common than it sounds.
“You’ll be able to see Mars, Saturn and Jupiter,” says Dr. James O’Donoghue, planetary astronomer and research fellow at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom. “If you have binoculars and know where to look, you can probably see Uranus, but there’s little point in waiting until almost sunrise; you might as well do that earlier in the evening. The bottom line is that you can only see about half of the planets in this planetary alignment with the naked eye.”
The best day to see the spectacle in Europe and North America is Sunday, about half an hour before sunrise, O’Donoghue said. Focusing on that time frame would also give you a chance to spot Mercury, although that might not be easy even with binoculars, he said.
“The problem is that the sun will light up the sky in that area,” O’Donoghue added. “It’s just before sunrise, but it will still be very bright in the sky, and you probably don’t want to point your binoculars at the sun either.”
If you have one, a telescope would help, especially if you’re hoping to see Uranus and Neptune. “But to actually see these, you have to zoom in so far on one target that you can’t see the other anyway, losing your entire field of view,” he said.
The order in which the planets align on Sunday is Jupiter, Mercury, Uranus, Mars, Neptune and Saturn, and they will be joined by a crescent moon. Later in the week, by Thursday, the moon will be out of the way — reducing light pollution, O’Donoghue noted — and Mercury will have swapped positions with Jupiter.
The alignment will be visible everywhere to sky watchers, but it is ideal The date on which you see the planets closest to each other may differ depending on where you are in the world.
It is important to note that this alignment does not take place in space, but only in the sky as seen from our planet.
“From the point of view of someone standing on Earth looking up at the sky, it will appear as if there is more or less a straight line of planets, what you might call a planetary alignment or a planetary parade,” said Dr. Kate. Pattle, lecturer in the department of physics and astronomy at University College London.
“But physically, no actual alignment takes place. It’s just that most planets are currently more or less on the same side of the sun. If the planets actually aligned in space, that would be called a syzygy and that is a much, much rarer event,” she added.
This type of planetary alignment is, in fact, not rare at all. “There will be a few more in the coming years as the outer planets move more slowly in the sky as they are further away from us, creating many opportunities for these types of alignments to occur,” Pattle said. “Actually, a better one will probably happen in February, when we’ll have all the planets in the sky at the same time, including Venus, which is missing on this one.”
Pattle recommends Monday, about an hour before sunrise, as the best chance to see the show in most parts of the world, and she is more optimistic about Mercury joining the group of planets visible without instruments.
“Mercury is usually visible with the naked eye if you are somewhere with little light pollution, but it is better with binoculars because (the planet) is not particularly bright and is only visible shortly before sunrise, so usually on a fairly bright background. ” she said.
An app like Stellarium Mobile or Night Sky can come in handy if you’re not sure where to look, and ideally you should be somewhere with little light pollution and a low horizon, as Jupiter, Mercury and Uranus won’t. be way above it, Pattle said.
Also try to be somewhere with a good view of the east, as this will be more or less in the direction of the sunrise. “Jupiter will be the easiest to see because it will be the brightest thing in the sky after the moon,” Pattle said. “The other planets aren’t easy to distinguish, but they don’t twinkle in the same way as stars, so that’s one way to spot them.”