Friday, May 13, 2011

Rare Planetary Alignment

From about 5am today, Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter were aligned in a way they haven't been since 1910, and won't be again for another 50 years or so.

So was it worth getting up early and braving the pre-dawn chill to see this rare sight? If you slept in, don't worry - the sky was covered in cloud, and drizzly rain was falling when I went out at about 5:30am. No chance of seeing planets.

An hour or so later, with the help of some technological wizardry (Google Sky Map on someone else's phone) here's what we can't see behind the clouds:

Amazing!

2 comments:

Chiara Z said...

Ummm, not being astronomically minded, nor astrologically minded . . . is there any significance to this other than the rare sight obscured by clouds?

kaiteM said...

i woke but then thought i'd wait for the next one, even if it's 50 years away!