It's been some time - I think May 2000 or 2001 - when we had most of the major planets aligned on the same side of the sky for easy viewing. By spinning my plastic planetica, it doesn't look like they will realign until 2011. So for, now getting a good overview of all the major planets on one night means picking a good night where half are visible at sunset and the other half at sunrise. Now is such a time. Kinda of a planetary version of the upcoming Messier Marathon. Last night, I started at nautical twilight at an Avenues park with Mercury in the west - which currently is at its most brillant. At astronomical twilight, Saturn's in Cancer and Mars is near Taurus. Uranus is another 10 degs in altitude above Mars on the west horizon, but it sets too early to be seen through thick atmosphere. At 5:45am this morning, I pulled into the Little Mtn parking lot based on Chuck's tip on Comet C/2006 A1. Venus was a brillant mag -4.8. Jupiter and its satellites are also especially brillant. Neptune and Pluto are in Capricorn, which just rises above the east-southeast horizon. Both are too low to be seen. At 5:00 to 6:00 am, the skies from Little Mtn were very clear. The Cygnus portion of the galactic arms runs east west about 30 degrees above the eastern horizon, ending at the galactic core in Sgr near the southern horizon. The Cygnus and Aquila Rifts were easily seen with the naked-eype and with binos, details in the Sgr cloud structures between us and the galactic core. Sco is high and transiting on the south horizon in its summer orientation. It was nice seeing both the antigalactic center M42 in Orion and its galactic center counterpart - M8 the Lagoon Neb on the same night. I didn't have a thermometer, but the temperature seemed to be around 30-35 degrees and did not feel oppressively cold at all. As I was unpacking the car at home at about a quarter to 7:00, The thin crescent of the 27 day-old Moon rose in the morning over Wasatch. I've seen the 2 day old crescent at sunset many times. The morning 27 day crescent is more spectacular. It has a more 3-D feel to it. Of this shallow sky group, Mercury will set over the next couple of weeks. The thin crescent of the new Moon will not return until around March 4. For a couple of hours of viewing and not much driving, currently you can get a good major planet tour all within 12 hours. - Canopus56 (Kurt) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com