During the last week of January and the first week of February we have an opportunity to easily see five planets at one time, and you don’t even need a telescope or binoculars.

Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are all stretched out in an arc from the southeast to the southwestern sky and can easily be seen with the naked eye, even if you have to put up with heavy urban light pollution.

Timing is everything, though. To see all five you need to look about an hour to 45 minutes before sunrise, not much sooner or later. If you look too early they won’t all be above the horizon, and if you look too late the morning twilight really starts to kick in. Wait until the first reasonably clear morning and see if you can spot our fellow solar orbiters.

Start out by finding the easiest one and then the most difficult one. Venus is by far the easiest because it’s the brightest starlike object in the sky. Venus is our closest neighbor in the solar system at an average of just more than 105 million miles away. It’s also the second planet out from the sun.

Venus will be beaming brightly in the low Butler southeast sky in the early twilight. As bright as it is, there isn’t a whole lot to see on Venus because it’s completely shrouded by a thick and poisonous cloud cover complete with acid rain.

Underneath the clouds there’s a runaway greenhouse effect on the surface. Temperatures can be more than 900 degrees.

The most difficult planet to see is Mercury, but it’s certainly not impossible. Part of the problem is it’s so low in the sky, barely above the southeast horizon. You really need to look for it no later than 45 minutes before sunrise or morning twilight will wash it out.

Another difficulty is because it’s so low you need to have a clear shot of the southeast horizon. Trees or buildings could easily block your view of the closest planet to the sun.

What will help is that you can use Venus to locate Mercury because they’re so close to each other. Mercury is about 12 degrees to the lower left of Venus.

Hold your fist at arm’s length. At a little more than the width of your outstretched wrist look for a fairly faint star. That’s it. That’s Mercury.

I sure hope you get to see it. Forget about pointing a telescope at Mercury. It’s a very small planet and it’s almost 75 million miles away. On top of all that, it’s so close to the horizon that it’s light has to plow through much more of Earth’s blurring atmosphere.

Saturn is next in line to the upper right of Venus, roughly 15 degrees away or about a fist width and a half at arm’s length from the planet named after the Roman goddess of love. Saturn is one of the best, if not the best telescope target with its famous rings and family of tiny starlike moons. Even with a smaller scope it’s still fabulous.

Presently, Saturn is more than 990 million miles away, but in June it will be a little closer at less than 840 million away, and you’ll get an even better look through your telescope.

Next in line in our winter planet parade is Mars. It is about 30 degrees or three of your outstretched fist-widths to the upper right of Saturn. Mars is almost directly above the southern horizon, about a third of the way from the horizon to the overhead zenith. Mars isn’t as bright as Saturn, but it’s still moderately bright with a distinct reddish glow to it.

Right now Mars is more than 130 million miles away, but Mars is a lot smaller than Earth with a diameter of just more than 4,000 miles. Earth is almost twice that girth. Because of that, Mars will basically look like a red dot with a few tiny blotches through even moderate to larger backyard telescopes.

We’ll get a much better look at Mars later this year. In May, the Martian planet will be less than 50 million miles away, the closest it’s been in a couple of years. Mars will be a much, much better telescope target by then. Stay tuned.

The final planet in our predawn parade is the big guy of our solar system. Jupiter has a diameter of 88,000 miles. It’s the second brightest of the planet parade and by far it’s the brightest “star” you can see in the southwest sky. It’s so gargantuan you could line up 11 Earths along its diameter.

Through even a small telescope you can see up to four of its moons on either side of Jupiter that revolve around the planet in periods of two to 17 days. You may even see some of Jupiter’s brighter cloud bands that stripe the planet.

Jupiter is now a little more than 440 million miles away from Earth, but like Saturn and Mars, the Earth and Jupiter are drawing closer to each other as we both circle the sun at our different paces. By early March, Jupiter will be just less than 415 million miles away from us.

Later this week, Jupiter will have a visitor. The waning full moon will be hanging to the lower right of Jupiter, and on Thursday morning the moon will be just to the left of Jupiter.

The moon in its 27.3 day orbit around the Earth is constantly migrating eastward among the stars and planets from night to night.

Enjoy your planetary parade over the next couple of weeks. What a great way to start your day, spotting fellow passengers in our solar system!

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis/St. Paul and is author of the book, “Stars, a Month by Month Tour of the Constellations” published by Adventure Publications and available at bookstores and at www.adventurepublications.net.