A planetary alignment is approaching very rare: one that will allow us to see all the planets (with permission from the Explaneta Pluto) of the solar system in the night sky. If the conditions allow it (something that It doesn’t seem very likely), On Friday we can see this great planetary alignment.
Seen and not seen. Part of the protagonists of This planetary alignment They may be seen at first glance on Friday night. To see the rest we will have to resort to optical instruments, such as prismatic or telescopes, or even with a teleobjective camera or Zoom of a certain length.
With the naked eye. A good part of the planets of our solar system can be seen with the naked eye, brilliant as stars, sometimes easier to see than these. In this list are the rest of the rocky planets inside our solar system (Mercury, Venus and Mars), and the two great gaseous giants (Jupiter and Saturn).
The real visibility of each of these planets will depend on several factors, such as light pollution or meteorology. Of all these planets, the most difficult to capture will be Saturn. The reason is that when the dusk arrives, the planet of the rings will be very low by the horizon, and will disappear after this Around 20:00 (The exact time will depend on our location).
Something similar will happen with Mercury, which will also disappear by the horizon just an hour after the sun. At the opposite end is Jupiter, which will be perhaps the planet with greater visibility during today. The visibility of Mars and Venus will be relatively good.
Not so powerful. And what about the rest? If we exclude dwarf and satellite planets, our solar system has two other planets: Uranus and Neptune. These are the two major planets that are not visible to the naked eye in our space neighborhood, so they could only be discovered after the invention of telescopes.
If we want to see Uranus, resorting to one of these gadgets is a good idea. The magnitude of this planet, discovered in the 18th century, is approximately 5.6 According to the portal calculations In-the-sky.orgwhich places this planet in the limit of what is visible by the human eye. That is why, if we want to see this planet, it is necessary in the necessary practice to resort to a telescope or, at least, to prismatic ones.
Neptune however is a bit more elusive. Already discovered in the nineteenth century, Neptune’s magnitude is around 7.7 According to Del Portal In-the-sky.org. This puts it out of the range of what we can see with our own eyes. In any case, an especially powerful telescope is not necessary to see this planet.
Other issues to take into account. To improve our visibility tonight there are three factors to take into account. The first, light pollution. Some of the planets that will be visible will be only in a very tenuous way, so away from areas where light pollution is minimal will be decisive if we want to see all visible planets today.
The second of these factors is The weather. The night is not presented today as the most appropriate for the observation of heaven. A storm Located in the south of the Peninsula will leave skies covered in a good part of the country.
Finally, it is convenient to know how to locate the planets we are looking for. For this we can assert us from different resources, including various applications Focused on astronomy and celestial observation.
Image | POT
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