We have an opportunity to easily see five fellow planets in the solar system at one time, and you don’t need a telescope or even a pair of binoculars.
Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn are all stretched out in an arc from the southeast to the southwestern sky and can easily be seen with the naked eye, even if you have to put up with heavy urban light pollution in your neighborhood.
Timing is everything, though. In order to see all five you need to look about an hour to 45 minutes before sunrise, not much sooner or later. If you look too early they won’t all be above the horizon, and if you look too late the morning twilight really starts to kick in. Wait until the first reasonably clear morning and see if you can spot our fellow solar orbiters.
Venus is by far the easiest to spot since it’s the brightest star-like object in the sky. Because of where Venus is and Earth is in their respective orbits around the sun, Venus is our closest neighbor in the solar system at just over 105 million miles away. It’s also the second planet out from the sun. In the pre to early twilight Venus will be beaming brightly in the low southeast sky. As bright as it is there isn’t a whole lot to see on Venus even with a larger telescope, because it’s completely shrouded by a thick and poisonous cloud cover complete with acid rain.
The most difficult planet to see is Mercury, but it’s certainly not impossible. Part of the problem is that it’s so low in the sky, barely above the southeast horizon. You really need to look for it no later than 45 minutes before sunrise or morning twilight will wash it out. Another difficulty is that since it’s so low you need to have a clear shot of the southeast horizon. What will help is that you can use Venus to locate Mercury because they’re so close to each other. Mercury is about 12 degrees to the lower left of Venus. Hold your fist at arm’s length. At a little more than the width of your outstretched wrist, look for a fairly faint star. That’s it. Forget about pointing a telescope at Mercury. It’s a very small planet and it’s almost 75 million miles away. On top of all that, it’s so close to the horizon that its light has to plow through much more of Earth’s blurring atmosphere.
Saturn is next in line to the upper right of Venus, roughly 15 degrees away or about a fist width and a half an arm’s length from Venus. Saturn is one of the best, if not the best telescope target with its famous ring system and family of tiny star-like moons. Even if you have a smaller scope it’s still fabulous. Saturn is over 990 million miles away, but in June it will be a little closer at less than 840 million away, and you’ll get an even better look through your telescope and be viewing it a lot more comfortably.
Next in line is Mars. It is about 30 degrees or three of your outstretched fist-widths to the upper right of Saturn. Mars is almost directly above the southern horizon, about a third of the way from the horizon to overhead zenith. Mars isn’t as bright as Saturn but it’s still moderately bright with a distinct reddish glow to it. We’ll get a much better look at Mars later this year. Stay tuned.
The final planet in our predawn planet parade is the big guy of our solar system. Jupiter has a diameter of 88,000 miles. It’s the second brightest of the planet parade and by far it’s the brightest “star” you can see in the southwest sky. Through even a small telescope you can see up to four of its moons on either side of Jupiter that revolve around the planet in periods of two to 17 days.
Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist.
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