{"id":5104,"date":"2025-02-05T16:25:06","date_gmt":"2025-02-05T16:25:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.guildfordas.org\/newsitestaging\/?p=5104"},"modified":"2025-02-13T15:52:27","modified_gmt":"2025-02-13T15:52:27","slug":"planetary-parade-16th-january-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.guildfordas.org\/newsitestaging\/2025\/02\/05\/planetary-parade-16th-january-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Planetary Parade February 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

From 17:30 to 19:45 on Thursday 16th January 2025, there will be a parade of planets across the  sky in the plane of the ecliptic. For newer astronomers, this is the plane of the solar system  across the sky or the arc where you see the Sun, the Moon and planets move along. It is to the South  with the celestial bodies rising on the East (to your left) and setting in the West (to your right) when  looking South. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These can still be seen early evening February.
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Star Maps & Apps <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are some star maps I took from Stellarium. Obviously the pictures are a little distorted but  this was to show the full horizon from East to West looking South with Guildford as the default  location. (This is accurate enough for most of the UK). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you have never used a star map before, you will notice East and West are reversed because if  you hold it up to match the sky over your head, they will end up in the correct place as long as  you are standing facing South. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I recommend if you want to see as many planets as possible you find the lowest horizon around you and whilst we normally recommend finding the darkest sky possible, planets are quite bright <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you want to use an app, the ones I use are Stellarium, Sky Safari and Skyview, but there are  plenty of decent apps, just bear in mind, they do ruin your night vision and you may need to  calibrate them as they can usually work out where you are, but not all of them automatically  detect the direction you are facing. So read up on how to calibrate your app of choice in  advance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, do make sure you dress up warm and are somewhere safe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which Planets Can I See? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mars will be slightly more orange in Gemini, Jupiter will be near a bright star called Aldebaran in  Taurus and Venus and Saturn will be next to each other in Aquarius. Uranus is mentioned and  that will be near the Pleiades (out of this view but at a higher elevation, however, it will not be  visible to the naked eye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sky at 18:00 GMT Without Constellations<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sky at 18:00 GMT With Constellations<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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At around 19:30 the nearly full Moon will rise to the East washing out the stars in the Eastern sky,  but you may wish to see that as well, and around 20:00 Venus and Saturn will be setting over the  Western Horizon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sky at 19:45 GMT Without Constellations<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sky at 19:45 GMT With Constellations<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If you do have a telescope or optics and want to try for Uranus, here is a zoomed in area, you can  find it from Orion or Jupiter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From 17:30 to 19:45 on Thursday 16th January 2025, there will be a parade of planets across the  sky in the plane of the ecliptic. For newer astronomers, this is the plane of the solar system  across the sky or the arc where you see the Sun, the Moon and planets move along. It is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guildfordas.org\/newsitestaging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guildfordas.org\/newsitestaging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guildfordas.org\/newsitestaging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guildfordas.org\/newsitestaging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guildfordas.org\/newsitestaging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5104"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.guildfordas.org\/newsitestaging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5155,"href":"https:\/\/www.guildfordas.org\/newsitestaging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5104\/revisions\/5155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guildfordas.org\/newsitestaging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guildfordas.org\/newsitestaging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guildfordas.org\/newsitestaging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}