Welcome

These pages are intended to help find the planets throughout the year. They cover two months at a time: There is information for the current month and the following one.

SkyChart III is used to generate the bi-monthly charts of the planets. Meridian v4.8, a freeware software program, is used to produce orreries that are views of the solar system from "above" or North. This program is very useful for planning or verifying observations of planetary surfaces and natural satellites for some of the planets.

There isn't any guidance for locating Pluto in these pages. When I upgraded to a 10" from a 4" scope I was able to track down and view Pluto on June 8, 2000. However, Pluto is a very difficult object and I don't think I can provide adequate guidance to others on this page. If you have an 8" or larger scope and want to spot Pluto, please contact me and I'll do what I can.

Sky Publishing's "This Week's Sky at a Glance" page is an excellent place to start for an overall view of the sky for the current week. There's also a page for the Southern Hemisphere. This page provides a day by day summary of sky events for the upcoming week and includes a "This Week's Planet Roundup" section. Sky Publishing also has page for finding Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.

The University of Arizona's Nine Planets Tour is an interesting site with loads of good information about the planets. The NOVAC monthly observing report, prepared by Jeff Stetekluh, contains detailed information on various solar system events in the next month.

Feel free to contact me, Ralph Marple, with questions, remarks, or suggestions.

Updated on 2005-06-03