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The way the night sky appeared last night through my Star Chart
app. Earth's horizon has been removed as well to open up the sky. I've turned off a bunch of features to make the planets
more distinct. There is a slight lens flair effect (that I wish I
could turn off as well) in my app.
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Throughout most of this year, I have enjoyed watching Jupiter, Saturn, and
Venus aligned in the night sky over my house just after sunset. By
this time of the year the three have shifted to the west but are still
clearly visible to the naked eye on cloudless nights. Mercury is too
low on the horizon for me to see now and Mars is below the horizon from
my perspective before the Sun sets. But, for the first time since I've
own my
Star Chart app, all the planets are more or less strung together in the
night sky.
Last night was clear and cold. Jennifer and I ventured out to enjoy the
glorious view. Since the trees have lost their leaves, the three
planets were visible from my front porch but you still had to walk out to
my driveway to see all three clearly. What is not so visible is the
fact that Venus and Pluto (even though the later is now a "Dwarf Planet")
are in conjunction in the sky. In the screenshot taken with my app
above they are practically on top of each other. In fact, they are billions of miles apart.
Scanning
the ecliptic
back toward the east, beyond the view of the naked eye, Uranus and Neptune
followed Jupiter in the sky. This is the most planets I've seen
together since blogging about a different alignment back in
back in 2012, also using my Star Chart app. It is interesting to note how the
planets were ordered so differently in the sky almost ten years ago.
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On the other side of Jupiter, back toward the east, was Neptune
and Uranus with the
Moon in between them.
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Switching to my Solar Walk 2 app, you can see that what appears to be a line of planets from the perspective of our night sky is, in fact, a planet salad. In reality they are all over the place within the solar system.
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The inner planets at the same time as the screenshots were taken in my Star Walk app. As you can see, they are not in a line at all. It only appears that way from Earth. Saturn and Neptune are out beyond Jupiter from this perspective. The bunches of dots are the Asteroid Belt, except for a few stars like Fomalhaut, which is 25 light-years away.
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Pulling back to reveal the outer planets at the same time. Jupiter is partially hidden by Saturn's label. Compare the location of Mars in this shot with the previous one. The Earth is the blue dot closest to our Sun in the center. The bunches of dots are the Kuiper Belt, but several distant stars appear as well.
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The grouping of Jupiter (top), Saturn and Venus from my driveway at 6:15 tonight.
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