2025, January 28: Evening Planet Display – See Saturn in the Evening Sky While You Can

January 28, 2025: Four bright planets are along an arc of the solar system plane after sundown.  During the next month, Saturn is lower in the sky each evening.  Catch the Ringed Wonder in the Evening Sky while you can.

Saturn
Image Caption – This NASA Hubble Space Telescope photo of Saturn reveals the planet’s cloud bands and a phenomenon called ring spokes.

by Jeffrey L. Hunt

Chicago, Illinois: Sunrise, 7:07 a.m. CST; Sunset, 5:01 p.m. CST.  Check local sources for sunrise and sunset times. Times are calculated by the US Naval Observatory’s MICA computer program.

Mars
Photo Caption – Mars (NASA Photo)

The predawn sky is without a bright solar system member.  Mars is very low in the west-northwest, although the atmosphere near the horizon blurs and dims the planet.  Mars aficionados who continue to look for the planet can see it earlier in the morning.

Mercury is still considered a morning planet, but it rises only 10 minutes before the sun.

Tomorrow, the moon is at the New moon phase at 6:36 a.m., signaling the Lunar New Year, and the beginning of lunation 1263, the number of lunar cycles since the count began in 1923.

Evening Planet Display

Four bright planets continue to put on a show each clear evening, nearly spanning the sky from the southwest to the east-northeast.

Nightly Planet Display
Chart Caption – 2025, January 28: One hour after sunset, Venus and Saturn are in the southwestern sky.

Venus is the brightest and easiest planet to locate.  Unbelievably bright, the Evening Star competes with lights on airplanes.  It is easy to find as early as 30 minutes after sundown.  When the moon is nearby on February 1st, it can be easily located during the daytime.

Spot Four Bright Planets Nightly
Chart Caption – 2025, January 25-February 2: Venus approaches and passes Neptune through a binocular.

Venus is in the same binocular field with dim Neptune.  This is a very challenging view because Neptune is quite dim and the outdoor lighting in urban and suburban settings washes across the sky to cast a veil across dimmer celestial bodies.  Beginning about February 3rd, moonlight creates additional light that makes the sky brighter than the dimmer celestial bodies.  By the time the moon rises later in the night near midmonth, Neptune is too low in the sky where it is dimmed and blurred by the thicker atmosphere.

The Evening Star reaches its maximum brightness on Valentine’s Day night.  Until that night, the planet’s brightness increases nearly 10% from tonight’s visual intensity.

Through a telescope, Venus is 40% illuminated, an evening crescent phase.

See Saturn in the Evening Sky While You Can

By an hour after nightfall, Venus is 30° above the west-southwest horizon.  After their conjunction 10 days ago, it is 8.6° above considerably dimmer Saturn.

Saturn, Ring-Plane Crossing
Photo Caption – In one of nature’s most dramatic examples of “now-you see-them, now-you-don’t,” NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured Saturn on May 22, 1995 as the planet’s magnificent ring system turned edge-on. This ring-plane crossing occurs approximately every 15 years when the Earth passes through Saturn’s ring plane. (NASA photo)

Through a telescope, Saturn’s rings are nearly a line.  We see them nearly edge on, like looking at the edge of a dinner plate.  Earth passes through the ring plane during March when the planet is in bright twilight.  Afterward we see the rings from below and the planet’s southern hemisphere for about 15 years.

Jupiter with Taurus

Nightly Planet Display
Chart Caption – 2025, January 28: During evening twilight, bright Jupiter is high in the east-southeastern sky.

Farther eastward, bright Jupiter is high in the east-southeastern sky.  Now slowing as retrograde’s illusion ends on February 4th, it is 5.1° to Aldebaran’s upper left, Taurus’ brightest star.

Rosy Aldebaran and the Hyades star cluster outline the Bull’s head.  They fill a binocular field of view.  Along with the Pleiades star cluster, look for them until evening moonlight washes across the sky on February 3rd.

Venus and Jupiter are always brighter than the night’s stars, including Sirius, the brightest. Look for Capella, the fourth brightest star visible from the mid-northern latitudes, to Jupiter’s upper left, though the planet is nearly 30 times brighter than the star.

Mars Retrogrades in front of Gemini

Nightly Planet Display
Chart Caption – 2025, January 28: Mars retrogrades in front of Gemini, near Castor and Pollux, in the east-northeastern sky after nightfall.

Mars’ brightness varies greatly depending on its distance from Earth. Tonight, it is the fourth brightest starlike body in the sky after Venus, Jupiter, and Sirius.

The Red Planet is nearly 30° up in the east, about the same altitude – height above the horizon – as Venus.  Mars retrogrades in front of Gemini, 3.2° to Pollux’s upper right and 5.9° to Castor’s lower right.  The planet passes the second star in a wide conjunction in three nights.

Mars’ westward march is obvious – about one-half of a degree or a full moon diameter each evening.  This retrograde motion closes the gap across the four planets to Saturn as the Ringed Wonder slowly plods eastward.  Tonight’s spread from Mars to Saturn is a little over 124°.  In a week it is 121.5°.

See Evening Planet Display

This evening planet display continues until mid-February when Saturn slips toward brighter evening twilight when this planet is less than 10° above the west-southwest horizon at one hour after nightfall. On February 24th, Mercury joins Saturn in the same binocular field of view at 30 minutes after sundown, although seeing a dim Saturn is a challenge.  Some sources may predict seeing the five bright planets simultaneously, but this is not likely because of the event occurring bright evening twilight and the difficulty seeing Saturn. 

See Saturn in the evening sky while you can.  Tonight, it is part of the bright nightly planet display.

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