Orbits

Solar-system snapshot with the Sun and all eight planets in approximate heliocentric positions.

Parade events are typically discussed from an Earth sky-view perspective. This chart is heliocentric (top-down), so those events do not appear as one perfectly straight line here.

Legend

Best Alignment Links (45° or Better)

These are best clustering snapshots in this heliocentric (Sun-centered), top-down view of the solar system. The spread value is the smallest angular arc that contains all eight planets around the Sun.

Planetary Parade Watch Dates (Earth Sky-View)

These dates are for the geocentric sky-view perspective (what observers call a planetary parade from Earth), which is different from the Sun-centered top-down spread metric above. Use these as practical check dates for parade-like evening or morning groupings in the sky. Four- and five-planet naked-eye lineups typically happen every few years, while six-planet events are less frequent and often include dim planets (Uranus/Neptune) that usually need binoculars or a telescope. This table is a curated watch list, not an exhaustive list of every 6+ planet opportunity across all years.

Computed 6+ Planet Catalog (-4000 to 4000)

Exhaustive list for this page's simplified model. Definition used: geocentric (Earth-view) ecliptic longitudes, then mark a day when at least 6 of 7 non-Earth planets fit inside a 95° arc. Rows are merged into continuous windows with start/end dates. This is computational model output, not an observational visibility guarantee.

Click "Load Computed Catalog" to fetch exhaustive results.