Planetary alignment on my birthday?

[gglwebster]

Hi, I'm looking for a resource that will tell/show me how the planets were aligned on a specific date, namely, my birthday. My birthday was February 12, 1982. Does anyone know of a program that I can put the date into and see a picture of the alignment? Anything like that? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[odysseus145]

JPL's solar system simulator should work. You'll need to change the field of view to 30 to see everything. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[gglwebster]

Well that looks like it'd work for me but it doesn't go back far enough, only to 1990. Any suggestions? How often do the planets align the same? That goes from 1990 to 2025, any dates between those might have the same? I really don't think so but any help would be great.....

 

[CalliArcale]

The best way is to get planetarium software, such as Starry Night. I've got a copy of that, and it works very well for simulating the positions of the planets at any given date.<br /><br />There are some free simulators as well. One I like to use is totally web-based. There are actually two utilities at the same site which you'll find useful:<br /><br />Solar System Live<br />Your Sky<br /><br />Solar System Live lets you see what the solar system looked like (with planetary orbits represented by colored lines, and the planets themselves designated by their astronomical symbols) on a specific date. I'm not sure how far back it goes, but I was able to see my own birthday, so you should be good. Your Sky gives you skymaps for particular locations and particular times. This also goes back plenty far.<br /><br />Note: all times on the site are either UTC (denoted as "yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss") or Julian. I use UTC. Make sure you remember to check the radio button for "UTC" or it'll assume you want to see "now". <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[tony873004]

Here's the solar system for Feb. 12, 1982 from Gravity Simulator:<br /><br />http://orbitsimulator.com/BA/ss82a.GIF Inner planetary region (Mercury - Mars)<br />http://orbitsimulator.com/BA/ss82b.GIF Outer planetary region (Jupiter - Pluto)<br />http://orbitsimulator.com/BA/ss82c.GIF (Earth / Moon) <br /><br />Everything, including the Moon seemd to be on the same side of the Sun on that day.

 

[gglwebster]

Ok everyone, thanks. You all were very helpful. I should have enough information for my project, thanks again.