Parade of the three planets

During these three days, in the clear sky you can see the "parade of three planets" that are low in the north-eastern part of the sky.

Three bright planets are placed diagonally across the sky at this weekend's pre-dawn sky which is right at the top of Jupiter, in the middle of Mars and Mercury at the bottom left. In addition, the company they will be waning moon.

To see the world, you had to wake up early in the morning, at approximately 4:45 local daylight time. Here's what the schedule was:

August 3: Jupiter rises around 3:15 am local daylight time. It is the brightest pre-dawn "star." In the northeast, you can see these last rays of starlight, threatened by the coming of the day. Jupiter is a few degrees to the right of the third-largest Mebsuty star in the constellation Gemini. Also this morning, at about 7 degrees on the right and slightly higher from Jupiter will be visible thin waning Moon lit by the sun by 11%. Astronomers measure the brightness of objects in the night sky on the stellar magnitude (shine), a scale in which bright objects have a lower value, and negative values ​​indicate very bright objects.

August 4: Mars is a yellow-orange point of light, with very modest rates of magnitude 1.6 (second figure is only 1/25 of the brightness of Jupiter) and has appeared in approximately 2 hours and 20 minutes before sunrise. In the following weeks, Mars will rise a little higher, and subsequently, it will be easier to see. Also, you can see the two stars Castor and Pollux in the constellation Gemini, located to the left of Mars. And this morning, about 5 degrees to the lower right of Mars waning moon will be a little thinner.

August 5: Mercury will appear very low in the north-east, about an hour before sunrise. This small planet is below with every dawn in early August, but yakrost dramatically increases the value of -0.6 this morning and to 13 August figure will be -1.3. Moon this morning will be extremely thin, lighted only by 2%. It will be in the top ten degrees below and to the right of Mercury.

                                                            

Watching this whole picture, each object is at different distances from Earth. The immediate object is, of course, the Moon, located near the apogee - the farthest point from Earth - about 405 000 km.

Mercury is located farther away 146 million km further away - Mars 358 million miles, and finally Jupiter, located at a distance of 892 million km.