The planet alignment – or planet parade, as some have been calling it – of January 2025 caused a lot of buzz online, making it an early contender for stargazing highlight of the year.
Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune all being visible in the evening sky at the same time was certainly cause for celebration, after all.
But as with many highly anticipated stargazing events, there was understandably much hype among newcomers as to what would actually be visible in the sky.
Photographer Rob Abbott set out to capture the January 2025 planet alignment to show what it would really look like from his back garden.
More used to a dedicated astrophotography setup with telescopes and astro cameras, Rob instead opted for a wide-field shot to get each planet in frame.
In the image he's done just that: Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Venus and Saturn all in a single shot, Neptune being a little too tricky to make out in the final image.
And the beautiful blue open star cluster known as the Pleiades, to top it off.
All from his back garden in Essex, UK.
"I did nothing to the image," Rob says, "no fancy editing, except converting it from my raw camera image to jpg by Affinity Photo."
"The reason I took the image is because quite a few of my friends on social media kept posting images they'd seen describing what the 'planetary parade' would look like.
"There were not a real representation, and I'd also seen some AI-generated images showing the planets very close together.
"I wanted to show them what the planet parade actually looked like across the evening sky, and also give them some guidance as to how they could capture an image too."
If you've captured the planet alignment, or any other astro images, share them with us by emailing contactus@skyatnightmagazine.com
