August 23, 2025: Witness the morning planet parade as Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune align in the pre-dawn sky. Best viewing is two hours before daybreak with a binocular for the dim outer planets.
by Jeffrey L. Hunt
Chicago, Illinois: Sunrise, 6:07 a.m. 8DT; Sunset, 7:38 p.m. CDT. Times are calculated by the US Naval Observatory’s MICA computer program. Check local sources for sunrise and sunset times.
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Morning Planet Parade
The morning planet parade continues in a window that begins about two hours before daybreak and lasts for over an hour. While Saturn and Neptune cross the eastern horizon about 75 minutes after sunset, they appear farther westward from Earth’s rotation during the night. Uranus joins the parade around midnight with its appearance near the Pleiades star cluster.
Bright Jupiter rises in the east-northeast less than four hours before sunrise, followed by Venus nearly an hour later. Mercury – the eastern planet in the parade – rises 90 minutes before sunrise.
Binocular View: Uranus
Neptune and Uranus are visible through a binocular before morning twilight begins. They are not visible at 45 minutes before sunup when Mercury is easily seen. At that time, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn line up along the plane of the solar system.
Binocular View: Saturn and Neptune
Saturn is in the southwestern sky. The line of three planets – Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter – is easy to spot in the eastern sky.
Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter in Eastern Sky
At 45 minutes before the sun rises, brilliant Venus is about 20° above the eastern horizon. It is 11° to Jupiter’s lower left. Both planets are moving eastward in front of Gemini. Tomorrow Venus crosses the boundary with Cancer.
Look for Pollux, one of the Gemini Twins, 7.9° to Venus’ upper left. As Venus moves in front of Cancer, it crosses an imaginary line that begins at Castor, the second Twin, and extends through Pollux. From the Americas, the planet is not seen precisely in line with the two stars.
Find Clear Horizon for Mercury
Mercury, the third planet in this line, is less than 10° above the east-northeast horizon, and 15.5° to Venus’ lower left. After Venus, Jupiter, and Sirius, Mercury is the next brightest starlike body in the sky this morning. It is brighter than Procyon, the Little Dog Star, over 20° to Mercury’s upper right. The speedy planet’s brightness is muted by the thick air near the horizon – causing the sun and moon to appear orange when rising and setting and sometimes distorts their shapes – and the colors of morning light.
Find a clear horizon to see Mercury and then notice the line of the three bright planets in the eastern sky. They are along the plane of the solar system, known as the ecliptic. The sun, planets, and moon appear to move near this line. On occasions when the moon is at the Full moon or New moon phase and it crosses the ecliptic, an eclipse occurs.
The six-planet parade nears its conclusion as Mercury retreats into bright morning twilight. At the mid-northern latitudes, Mercury leaves in approximately five mornings. Then five planets are visible in the parade for several weeks.
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