I can see myself sitting down for nice evening to do a planetary marathon ... concluding with a sip of a fine cognac and asking "Did the earth move for you ?"
I was thinking about how the planets will all be positioned around the Sun on the 18th of October. They certainly all need to be located on the same "half" of the orbital plane. Mind if I share your graphic around? I know a few teachers who would appreciate it.
Yes, "alignment" is a rather loose term here . I wonder if an actual linear alignment could actually happen???
But, I'm prepared to be a bit loose with the term as this really is a unique event. Hopefully this will help generate a bit more interest in astronomy. Certainly a lot more special than any "super Moon", and I'd even say solar eclipse. Not anywhere as dramatic as a solar eclipse, but a hell of a lot more rare.
Thinking about Pluto, now's a good time to start working towards identifying it from out of the surrounding stars. Start taking photos or making observations/sketches of the area it's in now, and work towards a series of pics/sketches to identify it with by the 18th of October. Neat little project
Mind if I share your graphic around? I know a few teachers who would appreciate it.
Yeah, no worries. It's just a screenshot off my watch Anyone (with an Apple Watch) can just select the astronomy watch face and wind the clock forward to 18th October, to see this.
Nothing new here. I remember about 20 plus years ago, a guy named Stan Dao ( could have the name spelt wrong) had a book about the planetary alignment back then. He was connecting it with end time bible prophecy.
I hope no one thinks I'm in anyway promoting any "end of world" nonsense!
The title of the thread is meant all in jest. For certain there's a lot of people who blindly believe in any form of astrological themes. This forum is not to promote them at all. It's great reading the contributions being made as they are all in keeping with the light hearted nature of the title
What IS "new" is the appearance of all the major bodies of the solar system all at once. For this alone I see it as a great opportunity as a tool by which to engage with the wider community with a REAL celestial event, not one that does not focus on any actual celestial event.
There is the occasional linear alignment of the 8 planets plus Pluto, but this "alignment" still leaves the planets spread out at best within a 30° angle from the Sun. The next such alignment is expected in 2854 - THEN the world will crap itself... (just kidding!!!! Sheesh... ) But this still only puts 6 planets visible at the one time as Mercury and Venus will be inside Earth's orbit and not visible with the others.
Seeing all 8 planets plus the Moon and Pluto all simultaneously is a very rare event. All the reading I've been able to find about any simultaneous planetary sightings has only had 6 planets at any one time, at most, including for this year, with the distribution of these planets is still a very wide one across the sky. Can't get any wider than what will occur in October though!
Thinking about it a bit more, this October's apparition may well be the first of a run of such complete planetary appearances. Right now Jupiter and Saturn are "chasing down" Pluto over the next couple of years, and will remain within close proximity to Pluto for a few more until all four gas giants leave Pluto behind. This means that there's a chance for a few more such complete simultaneous sightings of every major body in the Solar System to happen, and it will be a short lived event due to the fleeting appearances of Mercury and Venus. It will be a very long time before any such event happens again! Will need to spend a bit more time with Sky Safari to find out!
Alex.
Last edited by mental4astro; 04-06-2018 at 01:03 PM.
Timing of whole of solar system apparition events.
I've looked into if there will be any further opportunities to view another whole of solar system apparition. As it turns out, there are only three such events, and then it won't repeat for a few hundred years. Alignment is not really the right term, and I'm struggling to come up with the best term for such an "alignment" - anyone have a better term? So until I have a better term, I stick with alignment. Conjunction? Dunno. All of these events only last for a few days due to the swift movement of Mercury and the low altitude of Venus at these times.
* 1st whole of solar system viewing happens this coming mid October after sunset (Uranus rises around 7:40pm).
* 2nd event happens late April 2019 just before sunrise.
* 3rd and final event happens from late October and into early November 2019 after sunset. Venus and Mercury will also be within 2.5° of each other on October 31st too.
And then that's it for a few hundred years when all the planets, the Moon and Pluto are all visible simultaneously. Just a few days on three occasions over the next 18 months. A rare fish in deed.
I'll be starting my hunt for Pluto as soon as this bloody poor weather lets up... I hope to get a few Pluto sessions in before mid October in an attempt to be able to single out Pluto from its surrounding star field. I've never had an urge to find Pluto - heck, it's only seeing a faint "star" within a field of other faint stars. But now I have a reason to make hunting down Pluto worth while . I'll look into both visual and photo methods of identifying Pluto - I've got the means to do both so may as well. I've also identified an easily found 14th magnitude star to use as a test piece for attempting to view Pluto from my home in Sydney - I've easily seen this star from a dark site. If I can see this particular star from home then Pluto is cooked. Will be a real Hail Mary though. This star is easily visible using my video astronomy rig from home, so last resort would be using this video astronomy set up to identify Pluto in October.
Alex.
Last edited by mental4astro; 05-06-2018 at 12:14 PM.
It'll be mostly hidden by trees and rooflines I guess at home, just looked at my best/last/only alignment for five with two behind homes. And clouds rolling in. I'll see what I get this time around, thanks for the heads up! Always better than finding out afterwards which is usual for me.
No more green bananas for me.
Just hedging my bets.
Mamba
My gradnfather used to say that - brought me back to him. He's been gone 3 years now.
My father visited his graveside recently, and being, well, my father, kneeled down and spoke "Well Dad, I guess you are finally ripe like those bananas...". I just about wet myself in laughter.