Skywatchers to get special treat — five planets and a comet

The closest planet to the sun is rarely visible from Earth without some sort of telescope, but Wednesday morning for about an hour or so it will join Venus, Saturn, Mars and Jupiter in the early morning sky. February 7th is expected to be the best day for viewing Mercury.

The rare alignment will be the first time the planets have appeared together in the sky in 10 years, but The Conversation reports you won’t have to wait another decade to see it happen again.

This is the first time all five planets-the only ones visible to the naked eye-will line up since 2005.

The Washington Post reports that, if you look south from D.C. before dawn on Sunday, Jan. 24, then Mercury will be closest to the eastern horizon, while Jupiter will loiter in the west-southwest. If you’re not able to rise early Wednesday, the sight will be visible early mornings until late February. Mercury will be joining the party this week.

‘At temperate latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere, Mercury rises a whopping two hours (120 minutes) before sunrise’. Or so I assume, because the planets are aligning.

But EarthSky.org recommends using binoculars to see them more clearly.

It will be possible to view all five in the evening sky from about August 13 to 19, 2016.

Venus will likely be the easiest to spot as it is the brightest object in the sky behind the moon and the sun. And with the five planets on different yearly cycles, he added their alignment was “something well worth seeing”.

If you are in for the sighting of the planets, you can count on the Moon as an indication of their position: at the end of this month, our faithful satellite will travel by each planet and it could thus assist us in spotting them.

All of these planets will line up in a diagonal line from left to right. Starting Wednesday morning, five planets will be visible simultaneously with the naked eye.