5 planets align for rare parade in Pacific Northwest skies

The planets appear in a line because they orbit on a similar plane to the Earth’s orbit around the sun.

There are some tricks to seeing all five planets. “Ideally, you want an unobstructed view of the eastern sky”. So you need to be outside and looking for the planets around 6:30 AM, before dawn starts to lighten up the sky. In New York City, the timing of Mercury’s rise will be between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m. Exact times for specific days can be found on The Old Farmer’s Almanac.

The phenomenon occurs in the 45 minutes prior to sunrise, according to the Sky and Telescope.

Venus is the brightest of the five planets, so it’s a good starting point. Since 2005, it is the first time when Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn will align and offer an astounding celestial show, said Guy Worthey, an astronomer at the Washington State University. If you put your arm out and make a fist, Mercury should be about that distance from Venus. Mars will appear in the night sky at around 2 am while Saturn and Venus are lined up to brighten at 4:30 am and 5:30 am respectively. Technically, the others will be visible until Feb. 20, but Mercury, the closest to the horizon, will be much harder to see after the first week of February.

A telescope is not necessary to see the rare alignment of the planets, but a telescope will allow you to see Saturn’s rings as well as its brighter moons. NASA JPL also says that it’s been 11 years since this last happened but the next time all 5 planets will be visible will be late in July.