Spectacular view of Mars, Venus and the Moon Saturday morning

LOS ANGELES, CA (FOX 11) - If you like viewing the night sky, Saturday morning November 7th is your chance to witness a spectacular conjunction and alignment of two planets with the moon. Saturday's eastern sky is also showing a near perfect alignment of 5 planets, including the sun and moon.

If you look to the east before dawn, you will enjoy a superb view as Mars, Venus and the waning crescent moon shine from nearly the same location. You will also see Jupiter just north of these three celestial bodies.

If you were up early Friday morning, you may have observed nearly the same sky, except the moon was next to Jupiter, which is located a bit further north than the Mars and Venus conjunction.

Further south in the horizon, you can find Mercury and Saturn, although it’s difficult to see them since they are near the sun. You may be able to catch a glimpse of Saturn near the horizon just after sundown.

When you consider the view after sunrise Saturday morning, the morning sky will offer a near perfect alignment of Saturn, the Sun, Mercury, the Moon, Venus, Mars and Jupiter.  The other two planets Uranus and Neptune, are not part of this alignment, since they are not visible in the early morning sky. Uranus does not rise until 3:38pm PT / 6:38p ET, and Neptune does not rise until 1:53p PT / 4:53p ET.

A conjunction occurs when two astonomical objects have the same right ascension or the same ecliptic longitue when observed from Earth.  The conjunction implies an apparent close approach between the objects, whicn in reality they could be millions of miles apart.

[Photos in this story modified to project Saturday morning's sky via the Sky Guide mobile app]

More information can be found on Earthsky's website.

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