Wirt Atmar wrote:

> 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.


Yes!  I had never seen Mercury before with my own eyes.

...snip...


> 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.


While standing outside looking at this, it's easy to visualize the plane of the
ecliptic.
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