Looking forward to the 5 bright planet alignment?

[sharptrack2]

Anyone else catch the tidbit from the northern hemisphere, about the 5 early morning planet alignment? Will get better as February ends, but should have it's first possible sighting this weekend. Not sure how far north or south you might need to be but the east coast should have some awesome views if the weather holds.

From what I read, last time it happened was 10 years ago?

[clanmac]

certainly ill be trying to see it from Perth. Should be early morning my time i believe

[glend]

Kevin I believe you can see it here on tomorrow morning (Wednesday) between 5:30 -5:40am in the eastern sky. Looking at Stellarium for that time shows them all in a line across the sky from very low in the east to high in the northeast. Mercury is the lowest and probably hardest to see due to the brightening sky from the sunrising but if you were elevated on the coast you might be able to see it as well. I think there was a report on the tv news here about it as well, so it's not just a northern hemisphere event.:thumbsup:

[glend]

I am doing an imaging run on the Sombrero Galaxy (M104) right now and just saw a meteorite burn perfectly parallel down the planetary alignment axis from Jupiter past Mars to the ground. :eyepop:

[sharptrack2]

Great catch Glen! Did you get it on film, so to speak?

I actually did get to see all planets this morning, just barely. Walked down to a park nearby that looks out over water to the east, Mercury had just popped up over the trees, then it became too faint in a matter of a minute or two.

The northern hemisphere reference was only because I hadn't seen the event posted by any one from down south... as it happened I saw it on Facebook of all places!

[glend]

No Kevin the amount of sky covered by the alignment and the meterorite trail would have required a very wide angle lense on my camera, which was set into my RC08 aimed at Sombrero and is pretty narrow field of view in that scope. And because it happened early in the alignment (3:30am ish) I was not event thinking about watching for some random event like that - still it was pretty special. Hope someone else saw it, but they'd need to be out there looking at that time as well.

[ZeroID]

Took a look this morning at 5:30, had to go down the driveway to clear the trees and get a lucky break in the clouds. But I could see from Venus northwards, four of them. I don't have anEastern Horizon, blocked by civilisation.
Checking on my tablet it showed that 6 planets ( Pluto being included ) were above the horizon and theoretically visble at once at about 5:40 am. If you include Earth as the seventh in that grouping then the only outcasts were Uranus and Neptune. Rather auspicious start to 2016 ...

[sharptrack2]

Very auspicious indeed... go lucky number 7! :rofl:

[glend]

Hmmm.. and there is that black monolith floating near Jupiter as well... Open the pod bay door Hal...:eyepop:

[sharptrack2]

:rofl::rofl::rofl::thumbsup:

[Visionary]

A friend of mine, North of the Antipodes messaged me re: the event. I haven't as yet seen a report in our local press.

David

[ThunderStorm]

According to this:
http://earthsky.org/science-wire/when-will-all-five-visible-planets-appear-simultaneously

Second last paragraph:
"The Southern Hemisphere definitely has the big advantage for spotting all five planets in the August, 2016, evening sky."

It would be nice to watch at evening, right?

BTW, where will be the good vantage point/places to watch them in western Sydney area?

[sharptrack2]

Numerous reminders now in the calendar... hopefully better seeing than we have had recently.

[multiweb]

All I see is a lot of water on the east coast. Hopefully August will be better. :cloudy:

[ngcles]

Hi All,

Happened to get up early this morning 5am and saw all five ducks-in-a-row at 5.15am. Mercury is now pretty easy to see 20-odd degrees (a fist-width at arm's length) east of Venus. A fairly flat eastern horizon is pretty important. Mercury is currently pretty much the same brightness as Mars.

Best,

L.

[sharptrack2]

:stargaze: Was up at 4 a.m. this morning and managed to get a scope on all 5 planets before the sun finally washed out Mars and Jupiter became a fuzzy pale blob. Seeing was moderate to poor so everything was a bit fuzzy and washed out (still too much humidity it looked like to me).

While this is probably one for "Observations", I was stunned by the movement of Jupiter's moons in less than 48 hours. I was out Friday night getting a hour or two between cloud banks when Jupiter popped up over the trees and I got bead on it in moderate seeing conditions (trying out the "new" used SW708). The 4 visible moons were basically in a straight line at 80 degrees azimuth (NE as viewed in the EP) from the planet.

This morning, the ones I could make out, were all clustered together, again at about 80 degrees, first time I had actually taken note of the movement even though I know they move. Really was a moment of realization! :nerd::jump2:

I have been approached by some friends about the best places around to see this, and we hopefully will get in a Saturday morning soon to have a viewing session, I've offered to bring my telescopes if they want to get a closer look at each planet. Fingers crossed for the weather to clear over the next 2 weeks.

[RB]

What was the view of the Rover like Kevin, sharp?

:lol:

RB

[sharptrack2]

I couldn't get a clear look due to this odd looking fellow constantly getting in the way....

[RB]

:lol: