Observe 'dance of the planets' from May 24
The last week of May will observe a rare and beautiful cosmic choreography immediately after sunset. You will be able to see a “dance” of the planets followed by their vertical alignment on May 30 and 31 in the evening sky.
It will be an astonishing view for everyone and an opportunity for astrophotography enthusiasts. The dance will play itself out near the horizon in the west-north part of the sky. Three planets of our solar system will be participating in this rare cosmic event, i.e, Venus, Mercury and Jupiter.
This so called dance is only an apparent motion of the planets in the evening sky. They will “spin” around each other changing their positions in the sky from one night to the other making their outstanding presence felt.
This phenomenon will take place from May 24 to 30 this year and will be visible to the naked eye each night, although binoculars will be the best tool to observe it as Jupiter will be making a remarkable appearance this month.
The planets after this event will slowly move behind the sun and will disappear by nightfall.
On May 13, the planets Jupiter and Venus and the moon started to group in the western part of the night sky. As the date May 23 will approach, the bright planets Jupiter and Venus will be close enough to fall under a binocular field of view.
They will come very close to each other by May 28.
Afterwards, Venus will move in a northwesterly (to the upper right) direction with respect to Jupiter. At that point it will be six times as bright as Jupiter.
From May 24th to 29th, Venus, Jupiter, and Mercury will all fit within a 5° circle. Thus, they can all be viewed simultaneously through binoculars.
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