planetary alignment

[JJ027]

<span style='font-family:Times'>can any one tell me where i can find out which planet were aligned on december 31, 2003 and Jan 1, 2004 if so please help me.....</span>

[zephyr46]

Welcome :)

The forum below might be a good place to start

Sky and Telescope (http://skyandtelescope.com/) has the ability to set the time and place. Give it a go !

[Planetwatcher]

Most likely Saturn. It was at it's closest opposition to Earth about then.

[vandergraaf]

Venus, Neptun, Uranus, Mars and Saturn in the evening hours. But with naked eye you could see only Venus, Mars and Saturn.
Uranus was 16 deg. southwest from Venus, not visible without optical aid. Neptun was right beside Venus, 2 deg. north. Neptun was 8.0 magnitude, so you could not see this planet without telescope.
Jupiter rise around 11pm. on the east, and by that time Venus, Neptun and Uranus are allready set on the west.
Mercury clear on the southeast around 7am in the morning , and than you could see Saturn, Jupiter and Mercury. Pluto was near Mercury, only 9 deg. above, but i don`t think anyone could see this planet (14. magnitude) so low on the horizon and just one hour before Sun rise.

[GOURDHEAD]

For those who attach importance to planetary alignment, what is the tolerance window in degrees within which "alignment " is preserved. Is it the points of the center of masses that are "aligned"? Do you compensate for the time light takes to get from the various distances? Since the orbits of the planets are not exactly coplanar, alignment can only occur along the lines where the orbital "planes" intersect and the likelyhood of the intersection of lines representing the intersection of the orbits of more than two planets, with the planets at the point of intersection, occurring is very, very small. In summary, what is meant by planetary alignment? How would we recognize it if we saw it?

[DippyHippy]

Hmmmmmm... I think it's a sense of asthetics more than anything else... I mean, if you can draw a very approximate straight line through two or more planets, it seems to be classed as an "alignment"... I do wonder if there's some sort of official criteria though...

[GOURDHEAD]

My guess is that those who attach importance to planetary alignment have not given the concept sufficient thought to quantify the definition of that to which they are ascribing importance. :ph34r: