Help with planets

[Skimpy1970]

Can someone explain why Jupiter is lower in the sky from last year and will it disappear for a few years as it orbits the sun and will other planets like Saturn become higher in the sky next year or in the future. Any help more than welcome please. Just to help me understand it better. 

[nightfisher]

All to do with orbits, not aware of Jupiter getting close to the sun, but the next few years are not good for planetary astro

[Pig]

Hiya Skimpy,
This link may help you understand the planets movements on the ecliptic, I think it is known as the dance of the planets.

http://www.nakedeyeplanets.com/movements.html

[LukeSkywatcher]

6 minutes ago, Pig said:

Hiya Skimpy,
This link may help you understand the planets movements on the ecliptic, I think it is known as the dance of the planets.

http://www.nakedeyeplanets.com/movements.html

Great animation of the dance there. Really helps with understanding. Ive never seen that before.

[Pig]

Thank you Paul, 
The animation does a good job of showing why some of the planets are visible at some point within the year and by comparison why others are not.

The phasing of Venus against the sun that we are experiencing right now is also a very good example

[Skimpy1970]

Thanks luke . I'll have a read of it later. Just out to walk of the turkey at the moment. Thankyou

[barkis]

The Orbital periods of the Planets vary considerably, due to their different distances from the Sun.

Mercury     0.2 years
Venus        0.6 years   
Earth         1.0 year
Mars          1.9 years 
Jupiter      11.9 years
Saturn      29.5 years
Uranus      84   years
Neptune   164  years 
 

The Inner planets, which are Mercury, Venus and Earth, move around our star quite quickly.
The outer Planets, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, take a very long time indeed.
So, the outer planets vary their positions  in our skies only over long periods of time.
They move in the sky at the same rate as everything else nightly, due to the Earths daily rotation.
The altitude of the  planets in the night sky, vary annually in the sky because of the Earths rotation around the sun,
and as the earth's axis is tilted approximately 23 degrees, it presents an observer with either favourable aspects, or not so favourable, according to
Earths orbital position around the Sun. 
A rough description of it, someone else may explain it better. 

[Pig]

 Can you believe that

[LukeSkywatcher]

It took my head yrs to understand planets retrograde motion until i saw a similar animation. I just couldnt figure out why the planets seemed to be making loops and sometimes appearing to travel backwards. Its essentially a game of cat and mouse. Sometimes we (Earth) are the cat and sometimes the mouse. Its a chase.

 

[rockystar]

It's to do with when in the year they are visible - i.e. away from the sun. They all follow the ecliptic, which is the same path as the sun follows. In the winter the sun is low, so night time objects on the ecliptic will be high, in the summer this will be the other way around (i.e the Sun high and planets low).

Love that animation of the Dance of the Planets - her is a good explanation of the retrograde path of mars: http://mars.nasa.gov/allaboutmars/nightsky/retrograde/