This spatial view shows the planets’ paths along their orbits in the month, with sightlines to them from the Earth at May 12.
The planets are exaggerated 300 times in size, the Sun 5 times. A dashed line shows the vernal equinox direction.
The five naked-eye planets are scattered widely around the circle, so that we are in an arid period for conjunctions between them. The last was when Venus passed Mars on Feb. 2, the next will be when Mercury comes around in front of Mars on June 28. At present, Mars is the only planet in the sunset scene; Jupiter is higher, not long past its opposition; Saturn is in the high morning sky, rising before midnight; Venus and Mercury. to the “right” (west) of the Sun, are in the morning twilight,
A technical note: my website and blog are undergoing some reorganization, with outside help. This may have disconcerted you by causing some error messages and unintended tweets. The process is rather like plugging and unplugging plugs in cyberspace – where there aren’t any plugs – so I’m not surprised that sparks have flown from a few crossed wires; it should soon be over.
Guy
Sometime back you mentioned a place to purchase rugs that benefited indigenous people . Could you provide that link again ?
Yes, that was in http://universalworkshop.com/guysblog/2016/12/21/ersari-rug/
The Yayla rug company still exists and can be found on the internet. I dealt with Chris Walter from about 1992. You might ask if they still support rug-weaving refugee families from Afghanistan and Tibet. I’d be glad to know.
I like your circuitous play on words.