Planet-observing is fun and easy: Top tips here

Planet-observing is easy and fun

Sometimes when you’re out gazing at the brightest objects in the night sky, you’re seeing the planets without knowing it. There are five planets you can view without optical aid: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. These are the classical planets that the ancients knew. They watched these planets “wander” across the sky, seemingly unattached to the stars and constellations. The word planet is from the ancient Greek word planete, meaning wanderer.

For the outer planets (Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune), the best viewing happens around their yearly oppositions, when Earth is passing between that world and the sun, placing it opposite the sun in our sky. A planet at opposition rises when the sun sets and is visible all night.

The inner planets (Venus and Mercury) are most easily seen around their greatest elongations. The inner planets stay near the sunrise or sunset. Greatest elongation is when their distance from the sun on our sky’s dome is greatest.

When do you look for planets?

The fact is, any time you’re under the night sky, and the clouds have parted, is a great time to try to look for planets. There’s often a planet or two, or more, up in some part of the sky for much of the night (if not all night). The bright planets are often (but not always) brighter than the brightest stars. And you can see the most distant and dimmest major planets too, as long as you have a pair of binoculars.

Sometimes we are treated to special planetary pairings, such as the recent March 1, 2023, Venus and Jupiter close conjunction. They certainly drew attention as the two brilliant lights in the evening sky. Occasionally we have a planetary parade like last summer when you could see all five bright planets lined up across the morning sky.

Also, a good way to tell if it’s a planet or a star is stars twinkle, planets do not. In fact, planets generally shine as a steady light.

How will you know where to find planets at any given time? Visit EarthSky’s visible planets and night sky guide.

Keep reading to meet each planet and learn a few tips on what to look for.

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Mercury: Never far from the sun

Of the five classical planets, Mercury is the most elusive. By that we mean you have to look for it in the right place and at the right time. That’s because Mercury is innermost to the sun, so we on Earth never see Mercury stray far from the sun in our night sky. Mercury is sometimes visible after sunset, when it’s following the sun below the western horizon. Or, it’s up in the east, leading the sun up from behind the dawn horizon.

Mercury is just starting to emerge after sunset now. In fact, on Monday night (March 27) it’ll have a close encounter with Jupiter. You may need binoculars to find the planetary pair, but it’s worth trying to glimpse them if you have clear skies. Mercury is just beginning its best evening elongation of 2023 for the Northern Hemisphere.

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It’s fun to observe Mercury from the time it first appears – either in the west after sunset or east before dawn – through the time it’s farthest from the sun (greatest elongation) – and back to when it disappears again into the sunset or sunrise glare. During these times, Mercury makes a great loop in the morning or evening twilight sky. Every Mercury apparition is a little different, depending on the time of year, your location on Earth and other factors. Mercury is just now fresh from a grand greatest elongation in the morning sky. It’s now heading toward another greatest elongation in the evening sky (west after sunset), on April 11, 2023.

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Mercury shows phases, like the moon. Once you learn to watch Mercury with your eye, try some optical aid. Just be sure that the sun is completely below the horizon before you start searching for Mercury with binoculars or a telescope. Mercury and Venus, being inner planets, show phases like the moon. This happens around the time of their inferior conjunctions (when they pass between us and the sun). Mercury’s next inferior conjunction will be May 1, 2023. So that means you might see Mercury phases as the planet descends toward the sun starting in mid-April. You’ll need a telescope to see the phases of Mercury.

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As Mercury comes and goes in our sky – and as we and it travel around the sun – a telescope will show you that Mercury’s angular diameter (its size as seen on our sky’s dome) varies from 4.5 to 13.0 arcseconds. That’s because, Mercury’s size in our sky depends on how close Earth and Mercury are in their respective orbits.

Venus: Brightest planet

Venus is the brightest planet we can see from Earth. It outshines all the stars. When it’s close to the horizon (which it often is, being closer to the sun than Earth), people frequently mistake it for a plane with its landing lights on.

This neighboring planet is so bright because of its thick clouds and because of how close the planet is to us. It’s our nearest planetary neighbor in the solar system.

Venus is currently in the evening sky, incredibly bright, above the western horizon after sunset. It’ll grace our evening sky through the month of July. Then, Venus moves to the morning sky starting in mid-August and is visible through the end of the year.

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Venus looks especially beautiful when it pairs up with a crescent moon or another planet. In fact, the moon passes close to Venus on April 22 and April 23, 2023. Visit EarthSky’s visible planets and night sky guide regularly to learn the dates of those pairings.

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Like Mercury, through a telescope, Venus shows phases. Its apparent size in our sky changes, much like Mercury, but even more dramatically than Mercury. Venus is so close and so bright that, even with steadily held binoculars, you can sometimes see that Venus is something other than round. If you looked at Venus through a telescope tonight (March 27, 2023), you’d see it in a 79%-illuminated phase. The phase of Venus will shrink between now and the end of July. Venus will then pass between us and the sun on August 13, 2023. Afterwards, it’ll pop up quickly in the east before dawn.

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Venus will undergo what astronomers call greatest brilliancy on July 7, 2023. That’s when the overall largeness of its disk will balance with planet’s shrinking phase, so that we see Venus as an eerie bright light in our twilight sky. Watch Venus get brighter (and closer to the sunset) throughout June and July. Greatest brilliancy will happen again when Venus is in the morning sky on September 19, 2023.

Mars: The red planet

Mars is the most fascinating of the visible planets to watch with the unaided eye. That’s because it’s the planet next-outward from Earth in orbit around the sun. It’s not a very large world (smaller than Earth), and so its brightness changes dramatically throughout its visible cycle.

Mars is currently high in the evening sky, noticeably red in color but fading in brightness, setting a few hours after midnight. By the end of April, Mars will blend in with the other 1st-magnitude stars, as it shrinks and fades after its recent opposition on December 8, 2022, when Earth flew between Mars and the sun. Now Earth is fleeing ahead of Mars in our smaller, faster orbit around the sun. And as a result, Mars is fading day by day.

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The most distinctive feature of Mars to the unaided eye is its reddish color. When you view Mars from a dark-sky location, its color really pops. The red color is what drew the ancients to name the planet for the god of war. Iron oxide in the rocks, the same compound that makes rust and blood reddish on Earth, makes the surface of Mars look red, too.

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Binoculars mounted in a tripod can show you Mars’ round disk shape. Binoculars will also accentuate Mars’ red color.

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If you want to see surface features on Mars, you’re going to need a telescope. White patches on Mars are generally ice caps or clouds. Percival Lowell thought the dark areas of Mars were canals built by Martians to carry water across the surface. Others thought the dark spots were a sign of vegetation. Various spacecraft to the red planet revealed that dark markings come from a variety of sources, such as dark volcanic basalt or landslides, but not from life.

Jupiter: Biggest, with visible moons

Jupiter is disappearing from the evening sky now, and not far from bright Mercury at the end of March, 2023. Jupiter and Venus were fun to watch in February and March around their March 1, 2023, conjunction. They are the two brightest planets, and they’re both much brighter than all the stars making them very easy to see.

Jupiter will have a close encounter with the elusive planet Mercury on Monday night (March 27). You may need binoculars to find the planetary pair, but it’s worth trying to glimpse them if you have clear skies.

Jupiter will be slipping away in the evening sunset by the end of March, but it’ll reappears in the morning sky in early May. And Jupiter will be at its brightest for 2023 in October and November.

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Even the smallest telescope will reveal the four largest moons of Jupiter. Binoculars might also let you glimpse a moon or two, if you have a dark sky. The Galilean moons, as they’re known, are Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. Nightly observing will show them constantly changing places as they whirl around the giant planet, sometimes passing in front of or behind Jupiter. These occultations and transits can also involve the shadows of the moons visible on the planet’s disk when viewed through a larger telescope.

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The surface of Jupiter is also worth a look through a telescope. You’ll need a larger size telescope to make out the Great Red Spot, but smaller scopes will still show you the light and dark belts and zones that ring the giant planet.

Saturn: Golden color, magnificent rings

Saturn is the faintest of the bright planets, and it’s currently ascending in the morning sky. Saturn will be at its best for 2023 from mid-August to mid-September. You can’t see Saturn’s rings without a telescope. What can you notice about Saturn with the eye alone? Be sure to notice its golden color and steady light.

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Saturn is called the planet of the rings with good reason. The rings of Saturn are magnificent! As the years pass, and we and Saturn both orbit the sun, the angle of the rings changes with respect to Earth. Sometimes we see the north face of the rings, and sometimes the south face. Sometimes, the rings turn their razor-thin edge to us, and virtually disappear. We can’t overstate how glorious Saturn’s rings are to see. They make the planet look twice as big as it would without them.

On a night of good seeing, with a small telescope, you can make out a gap in the rings, called Cassini’s Division. You can also look for a shadow of the rings cast onto the planet, or a shadow of the planet cast onto the rings.

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Titan is also visible through a telescope.

Uranus: A different pale blue dot

Carl Sagan described Earth as a pale blue dot when looking at a Voyager 1 image of our planet as the spacecraft sped out of the solar system. For us on Earth looking out at the solar system, the seventh planet from the sun, Uranus, appears as nothing more than a pale blue dot. And that’s through a telescope! With the eye alone, you can sometimes pick out Uranus from among the stars. But, to do it, you need absolutely pristine, dark skies.

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Uranus is easier to find when close to the moon or a bright planet. In fact, Uranus is near Venus right now and is closest to Venus on March 30, 2023. It’ll become a morning planet in August, and be near Jupiter through the end of the year.

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With a telescope, the surface features and rings of Uranus can’t be seen. But some larger telescopes will pick up a couple of Uranus’ moons. A medium to large size telescope might show you Titania and Oberon. They are the largest moons of Uranus and orbit far enough from the planet that you can distinguish them as separate points of light.

Neptune: Farthest major planet from the sun

Neptune is the biggest observing challenge on the list, but it’s not hard to see with optical aid and a guide star or planet. When Neptune is close to an object that’s easy to pick out of the night sky, say, Venus, you can pick it up easily in binoculars. Keen eyesight will show it as a disk with a darker blue hue.

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Neptune in 2023 becomes bright enough as a morning planet to find in binoculars in late August. It reaches opposition in late September and remains visible in the evening until almost the end of the year. It’ll be near the Circlet of Pisces then.

The moon can help planet-observing

If you aren’t familiar with the stars and constellations, the moon can help guide you to the planets as it orbits around the Earth each month.

For charts and further information visit EarthSky’s Visible planets and night sky guide.

Bottom line: Get our top tips for planet observing, from innermost and elusive Mercury out to faint blue Neptune … and everything in between.