by Randy Muller
I had a completely accidental and wonderful view of four bright planets on my way to my piano lesson tonight (1 March 1999) at 6:50 pm local time.
Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and, higher and more distant than the other three, Saturn described a graceful curve.
Mercury was very, very easy to see and bright. This is probably the brightest I've ever seen Mercury. It was fairly low, but not that low.
Next, going up, was Jupiter, which was somewhat brighter than Mercury, but not overly so.
About the same distance away was Venus, and much brighter than the other two.
Finally, quite a ways further east was Saturn, which was probably the faintest of all of them, yet easy to see from inside my car.
It was a lovely sight to see 4 bright planets in the west.