Tomorrow (12) before sunrise, the Astronomy Department of the Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Advanced Technology urges the public to watch the ‘Planet Parade’, in which six planets – Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune – will appear in a line across the eastern and southern sky.
Of these six planets, Mars, Saturn, Mercury and Jupiter are visible to the naked eye, while binoculars are required to view Uranus and astronomical telescopes are required to view Neptune.
The best time to view this spectacle is between 4.30 and 5.15 am tomorrow. This view can be seen from the southern sky from the eastern horizon.
Mars and Saturn can be easily identified here, while Mercury and Jupiter are located close to the eastern horizon, so observation may be somewhat difficult near sunrise. Sri Lanka’s location near the equator creates a very suitable environment for observation.
In addition, the famous ‘Perseid meteor shower’ is also scheduled to be visible at its maximum level from the night of August 12 to the morning of the 13th.
This meteor shower is created by the fragments of the ‘109P/Swift-Tuttle’ comet, which orbits the Sun once every 133 years, and it appears to emerge from the constellation ‘Perseus’.
To view it, one should observe the northeastern sky after midnight tomorrow (12).