Meet and greet Planetary lineup
Unlike fixed stars, planets wander around the sky in a narrow band of sky hugging close to the path of the Sun called ecliptic. When the full moon or new moon is exactly on the ecliptic it is time for Solar or Lunar eclipse. That’s why ancient astronomers paid special attention to this region of the sky and divided it into 12 parts to match with 12 months in a year. All the planets are not visible at the same time some rise after the Sun set some are seen before sunrise and if some planets are too close to the sun they are not visible to us as their light is too feeble compared to the brightness of the blue daytime sky. But whenever all or most of the planets are visible at one time, especially in the evening it is time to enjoy their spectacular appearance. It is natural for planets to be seen as in a narrow band because their orbital plane matches with the earth with minor differences. This phenomenon in popular jargon is called planetary parade. It is not a rare occurrence but not a daily thing also. So it is time to go to a dark site and look up to enjoy the view. Rest assured despites coated industry of messengers of doom, there is nothing to worry about, so pay your taxes, plan your trip to nearest Starscapes observatory or our partner’s location to see what planets are up to for powerful telescopes. It’s good to be the first to watch them on the coming weekend but if you miss it you can catch up with planets till late February.
Let’s see what you are going to watch. First to greet in the Dusk sky is going to be the planet Venus or Shukra. It is the most bright object after the Sun and the Moon. Just turn towards the west of the south west and to handspan it shins like a dazzling diamond. When Venus is viewed with a telescope it doesn’t show any surface features and looks like a blended white blob of sky. But look carefully you will see not as a full sphere but like a small half moon. The interesting thing about Venus is it shows phases like the moon but at the same time unlike the moon its size changes dramatically, up to 7 times from new to near full. Right now it is the smallest in its appearance. The best time to see Venus at its largest is when it is crescent in appearance in the morning hours of the month of May 2025.
Close to Venus is planet Saturn. It may not be the largest or ‘king’ of the planets but the most dandy of the planets flaunting its beautiful rings. It is number one in the Solar system in a different sense as it has the maximum number of moons, of total 146 moons. Few of them can be spotted with telescopes. I recommend having a good view of Saturn’s rings before they disappear from our view on the 23rd March . No, don’t worry Saturn is not going to lose its rings only because we will be viewing the ring’s edge. You should know that Saturn’s ring’s diameter is hundreds of thousands of km but thickness is on average less than a km. So every time they diapers whenever we view them edgeward last time it happened on 4 September 2009. Come again to our observatory in November to watch the reappearance of the majestic ring of Saturn.
Next planet in our list to look for is our big brother Jupiter seen with its 4 Galilean moons. Their position in relation to Jupiter changes every day so you might be lucky to get to see them all in one evening. Gynamede, the largest of all the Moon, is larger than planet Mercury. Along with the Callisto and Europa all three are mostly icy, probably having liquid ocean in the interior. One moon of Jupiter Io is an odd man out, it is the most volcanically active body in the solar system. You can not miss the equatorial belts of Jupeiter indicating its stormy upper atmosphere. If alignment is right and atmosphere above our telescope is calm you might be lucky to see the Great Red Spot, a cyclone lager than our earth, that has been raging across since we started observing through telescopes.
Red planet Mars is shining brilliantly these days as it is in opposition. Its position is suitable to locate its Polar ice caps, reminding its similarities with our earth. It has got a mountain three times larger than Mount Everest and a canyon deeper and larger than the Grand Canyon. Seeing them is very much dependent on the seeing conditions on the earth (I mean at your location). Mars may our next human settlement and your child or their child may queue to be drafted as first Homo spaceans to go there. Try to do site seeing with a telescope to mark the location for the first Indian settlement.
By February end Saturn will be exiting the evening sky but illusive Mercury will join the Planetary parade.
Note: images given are as the planets seen with the telescope.
