MERCURY is at inferior conjunction with the Sun on January 5, when it will overtake the Earth on the inside. Conjunction sees the planet move from the evening to the morning sky.

At first after conjunction, Mercury will be too close to the Sun to be visible. The planet will be moving to the west, the opposite direction to the Sun, so their separation will increase quite rapidly. It is stationary on January 16, after which Mercury will move to the east, but at first quite slowly so that its elongation from the Sun will continue to increase until January 27 when it will be 25° west of the Sun.

By the last week in January Mercury will rise up to 2 hours before the Sun, and be some 12° above the horizon 45 minutes before sunrise. The planet will be a little way round to the south from east in Sagittarius a few degrees to the left of the handle of the "teapot". With a magnitude close to zero, Mercury will be more than 2 magnitudes brighter than the brightest star in the handle, Nunki, magnitude 2.1 so readily distinguishable.

VENUS is close to the Sun throughout January and virtually unobservable. It starts the month 2.5° to the west of the Sun and rises 12 minutes earlier. It reaches superior conjunction on January 12, when Venus is on the opposite side of the Sun to the Earth. Venus will then be just over half a degree to the south of the Sun. By the end of January the planet will be 5° to the east of the Sun, and setting after it, but less than 20 minutes later on the 31st.

MARS reaches opposition at the end of January after having been a morning sky object for almost the whole of 2009. Opposition will mean the planet then becomes visible all evening. Until later in February Mars will be low immediately after sunset.

Close to opposition, Mars will also be at its brightest, magnitude -1.3, and appear largest for the current apparition, 14 arc-seconds in diameter. Mars is closest to the Earth a couple of days earlier.

As might be expected with an opposition near mid-summer, Mars will be low in southern skies, at a similar altitude to the mid-winter Sun. The planet starts January in Leo; on the morning of January 4 the Moon, 89% lit, will be about 7° to its upper right of Mars. The retrograde motion of the planet takes it back into Cancer on January 10. By the 30th Mars will be less than 4° below the Beehive cluster, while the full Moon passes Mars for a second time this month, just over 6° to the upper right of the planet.

JUPITER, in the evening sky, sets about 2.5 hours after the Sun at the beginning of January, but only an hour later at the end. This means it will be visible as a low object to the south of west until fairly late evening at the beginning of the month, but will be all but lost in the evening twilight by late January.

Jupiter starts January in Capricornus, with Neptune 2° to its west. The brighter planet moves steadily to the east during the month, and will have moved into Aquarius on the 6th. On the 18th the Moon, will be 5° to the lower right of Jupiter, but both will be low to the west by the time the sky starts to darken following sunset.

SATURN rises about 1 am at the beginning of January and a couple of hours earlier by the 31st, so remaining mostly a morning object. The planet will be slow moving in Virgo, it is stationary and starts moving in a retrograde direction on January 15. Saturn will be about a degree from the star η (eta) Vir all month.

At present the Moon is not passing very close to Saturn. The two are just over 7° apart on the morning of January 7, with the 59% lit moon visible above Saturn in the morning sky.