This morning I went out to see the big planetary alignment. If you don’t know, from around the 18th to the 27th all the planets and our Moon are aligned up over the eastern sky before sunrise. Sadly Neptune and Uranus are hardly ever visible, if at all, maybe from very dark places and a few hours before sunrise, and even then with binoculars. Mercury is an elusive one, it’s balancing between the brightening sky and its proximity to the Sun. You need to get it right just before the sky gets too bright to wash out the planet’s light and right after it gets up to a decent elevation. Anyway, I couldn’t get it right, so it’s invisible. There are 2 different pictures attached, one taken at 3:31AM and the other at 4:05AM. Both are available annotated too.
As for the experience, it’s fine, but nowhere near as interesting as a comet. Back in 2020 comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) was the big event of the year, attached a picture from that too. Well, if you don’t count the corona.
Also bonus foggy sunrise pictures from on the way home.
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