The "Classical" Planets - Celestron NexStar 90 MAK Instruction Manual

TheSkyX First Light Edition User Guide
To locate the Moon, on the Edit menu, click the
Find command, enter the name "moon" in the Find
text box, then click the Find Now button.
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The "Classical" Planets

Not counting Earth, five planets are visible to the
naked eye. It has been known since ancient times
that the planets slowly change position relative to
the stars, which appear to be fixed, never moving
with respect to each other from year to year. In
fact, the word planet derives from an ancient Greek
term that means "wanderer."
All planets in our solar system orbit the Sun (you
probably know that the Sun is a star, not a planet).
Their orbits lie more or less in the same plane, so as
they circle the Sun, their paths are restricted to a
narrow band in our sky, which is called the ecliptic.
The constellations that lie in this plane received
special attention from ancient astronomers.
Collectively they are known as the Zodiac
constellations.
The farther a planet is from the Sun, the longer it
takes to complete a single orbit. Planets farther
from the Sun therefore move more slowly through
the Zodiac.
TheSkyX can locate any planet wherever it happens
to be on a given night. Below we describe some
general features of the planets, starting from the
closest in, then moving out to the edge of the solar
system.
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