Last chance to see.....

..... the six naked eye planets.

Every few years the five naked-eye planets align themselves such that you can see them all in the sky at the same time. Right now is just such a time, and there's a few more days of this before the most timid of them - Mercury

- drops back out of sight below the pre-dawn horizon. I recommend 5:00am to 5:20am in Sydney latitudes.



So get up early, get out there, and enjoy the spectacle.


In the eastern sky, from bottom to top, there's Mercury and Venus, close together, then there's Saturn, and pretty high up there's Mars. Venus is the brightest thing in the sky, and Mars is one of the reddest. Scorpius, the curly-tailed scorpion, helps you locate them all.

Over in the north-west is the second brightest planet in the night sky: Jupiter. It's a bit away from the others, and I couldn't get it into the same frame, despite lashing out on a new $370 super-wide angle lens! It's in the constellation Leo the Lion.

So what's this sixth naked-eye planet? Just look down at the one below beneath your feet! *

'Last Chance to See', by the way, is the title of a book co-authored by Douglas Adams (of Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy fame). It was about several endangered species of animal around the globe. It could almost refer to the clear skies still sometimes available above planet Earth, or indeed to a liveable Planet Earth itself.


* With thanks to Perry Vlahos and the Sydney Morning Herald