The six planets known to the ancients, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter
and Saturn are presenting a magnificient pattern in the sky these evenings.
If you have the time and have clear skies in the west, you really do want to
go outside and take a look at it.

You will need to be outside just after sunset, in the darkening twilight, and
begin looking while the sky is still blue near the horizon. Mercury, which is
close into the Sun, is rarely visible, whipping around the Sun in 88 days.
You can only see it when it is maximally separated from the Sun, essentially
making a right angle in the Earth-Sun-Mercury triangle, which is now. But
because Mercury is so close in to the Sun, it never gets very far from the
Sun and thus it's always in the Sun's haze.

The brightest thing in the sky after sunset will be Venus. Jupiter will be
the second brightest, at about 11 o'clock to Venus, very much higher in the
sky. Mercury, which will be faint, appears a little distance down from Venus,
at 5 o'clock. Mars is also at 11, but quite close in to Venus, and Saturn
will be at about twice Mars' distance, at 7:30.

This "alignment" of the planets doesn't occur very often and it will be 40
years or so before the planets get this close together again. Of course,
close isn't all that it's cracked up to be. The planets aren't particularly
close to one another. They're just momentarily lined up in our field of view,
like race cars going around a track, where some of the cars are on the the
side of the track closest to us and others on the other side.

Wirt Atmar

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