Spectacular five-planet conjunction visible for month

For the next month, weather permitting, Vancouverites will be able to wake up to all five of our solar system’s brightest planets arrayed across the dawn skies.

It has been almost 11 years since this particular planetary conjunction has been visible to the naked eye in the northern hemisphere, and the alignment will showcase Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Venus, and Mercury in a diagonal line above the southeast horizon.

Those first four planets have been visible for a few weeks already, but now Mercury—our system’s planet nearest the Sun—has joined the party as closest to the horizon. It will be the dimmest of the five, but it should still be visible at the lower right (the diagonal will stretch from upper left to lower right).

Since you will be looking at Earth's horizon at the same time, you will actually be seeing six of our solar system's eight planets simultaneously (down from nine with Pluto's demotion to dwarf-planet status almost a decade ago).

Binoculars will help but are not necessary for this spectacular show, which will not happen again for another 24 years, in September 2040. Jupiter and Venus will shine the brightest, but all of the planets can be differentiated from stars by the fact that they do not appear to flicker.

If you are an early riser (or even if you aren’t), check it out 30 to 45 minutes before dawn (which happens at 7:56 a.m. in Vancouver on Friday [January 21] ).

Although the conjunction will occur once more in August, Mercury and Venus will be so close to the horizon in northern skies that there will be difficulty making them out unaided.