A planetary parade will be visible in the skies over Rochester in early June, but you’ll likely need more than the naked eye to see this celestial event.

Six planets will seemingly align during June — though the effect should be particularly visible in the predawn hours on Monday, June 3, according to StarWalk.space, the website for astronomical app Star Walk. Saturn, Neptune, Mars, Uranus, Mercury and Jupiter will be arranged across the early morning sky, about 1 hour before sunrise. Sunrise for Rochester on June 3 is 5:32 a.m.

Six planets align on June 3, 2024. What will you be able to see?

How many planets will actually be visible is disputed, however. Forbes senior contributor Jamie Carter contests all that will be visible with the naked eye will be Saturn and Mars, both dim, while Jupiter and Mars would be tricky to see so close to the sun. Uranus and Neptune would only be visible with assistance from a telescope.

Instead, Carter recommends looking at the moon in the predawn sky, with Mars and Saturn visible nearby and a waning crescent which transitions from 42% to just 6% from May 31 to June 4.

Meteorologist and science writer Scott Sutherland, in a piece for The Weather Network, recommends June 15 as a better date to see the planetary parade, when five planets will be in alignment and rise higher in the sky before dawn. Even then, however, Uranus and Neptune won’t be visible without the use of a telescope.

What is planetary alignment?

The planets in our solar system orbit the sun in a relatively flat plane, meaning that from Earth, they appear to follow a similar path to the sun and moon across the terrestrial sky. This plane, the ecliptic, means the planets are nearly always aligned anyway, according to EarthSky, an astronomy website.

So while it’s a good opportunity to see several planets at once due to the waning status of the moon and the timing of the planetary rises, the actual alignment is not rare in the way April’s solar eclipse was, for instance.

When will the planets align again?

Here’s when StarWalk.space predicts the next six- and 7-planetary alignments will happen:

◾ June 3: Six planets – Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

◾ Aug. 28: Six planets – Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

◾ Jan. 18: Six planets – Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune

◾ Feb. 28: Seven planets – Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. (The last time all seven planets aligned was on April 8 during the total solar eclipse).

◾ Aug. 29, 2025: Six planets – Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

USA Today reporter Janet Loehrke contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Parade of planets 2024: How to see it, best viewing times in New York