Celestia Forums

The people in this forum probably know this already, but anyway: in the coming weeks, Mercurius, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are all visible at the same time in a row in the west just after sunset. I was curious how this would look in Celestia, to see how earth is positioned relative to these planets. It did give great insight. Again, I was very happy with Celestia!

This is the reason I'm downloading Celestia now, I'd like to see if I can do the following: Start off with the Earth's-eye view of the 5 planets in the west and superimpose their orbital paths on that view, and then move up and away from the Earth, then over the sun until I'm looking straight down at the Sun in the centre, so I can see whereabouts the planets are in their orbits around it (if that makes sense...!).

I did try this in Celestia, and from what I saw all the planets were on the opposite side of the sun from the earth,
something like
Sat-------Jup-----Mars------Ven------Mer----------Sun-----------------Earth
So surely, if this is how it is and just not something wrong with my copy of Celestia, the night side faces away from the sun and therefore we can't see the planets? I've probably/certainly missed something obvious, but...

The sun is not really in between, just after sunset Mercury is still above the horizon, and the other planets are above and to the left. The observer is then near the boundary of night and day.

When will that happen?

It has already started and it will last a few weeks.