Occasions when several planets are visible in the night sky at the same time without being close together are not exactly common but do happen frequently enough to make them worth looking out for. There was such a "Parade" at the end of 2024 and the begining of 2025, with all the planets except Mercury being easily visible in the night sky at the same time for several weeks. And by "easily visible" I mean able to be seen at a reasonable altitude against a dark sky - possibly only with optical aid though. I thus felt I ought to capture images of each of them, just for the record if for no other reason. Doing so for Neptune wasn't really possible though as by the time my weather conditions improved sufficiently to give me some clear skies it was quite low down in the west and thus beginning to get lost in the twilight. The image below shows how the astronomy program Stellarium saw the Parade, looking South at the time I took my pictures. Note that the Sun is well below the horizon at this time.
The device below enables you to step across the sky from East to West viewing (in turn) the pictures I took of Mars, Jupiter, Jupiter plus Uranus (with a locator for Uranus next), and then the Moon plus Venus & Saturn as they were to be seen at the beginning of February. Were it to be visible, Neptune would have been seen slightly to the lower left of Venus - as shown by the final frame.
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And if you had looked up a couple of days after I took the above images what you would have seen is shown by this excellent panorama produced by my school-chum and "astro-collaborator" Roger Firth:-
Image (c) Roger Firth 2025
Here we see, stretched across the sky from East to West (left to right), Mars plus Castor & Pollux; Jupiter and Aldebaran; the Moon; Venus, and finally Saturn sinking into the twilight. The other two stars visible are Betelgeuse (upper) and Rigel (lower) in the constellation of Orion. The very bright star Sirius and also Procyon nearby would have been seen to lower left were it not for an annoying cloud bank blocking the view. It can be seen that the Moon has moved much higher in the sky in the time between our observations.
Mercury, well below the horizon in the Stellarium view above, will move to the east of the Sun and join the Parade at the end of February but both it and Saturn will be very low in the west (only 4 degrees above the horizon 40 minutes after sunset on the 25th) so it, and particularly Saturn at just magnitude +1, will only be visible under excellent viewing conditions. I shall have a look if the weather allows, however!
And as to when the next Parade might be visible, that's actually a difficult question to answer as it depends on how many and which planets you expect to see, across how great a span of sky, and during which part of the night. It is relatively straightforward to search for actual conjunctions i.e. when the planets are really close together, but difficult to look for occasions when several are visible but spread across the sky. However, for those of you who like to get up early, the Internet tells us that in mid-October 2028 the planets Jupiter, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Uranus & Saturn will all be above the horizon around dawn, in that order, from East to West with the Moon also present from the 15th until the 18th. How many of the planets will actually be visible is, of course, another matter. Jupiter rises only 70 minutes or so before the Sun during this period and so at sunrise on the 16th, for example, it will sit at just a little over 10 degrees above the bright eastern (dawn) horizon and thus could be difficult to see even at magnitude -1.67. Similarly, Mercury at magnitude -0.32 will only be 15.5 degrees high. Probably worth marking your diaries though, as you will have a few days to capture the lineup. The C2A view of the situation is shown below. Note that in this case the Sun is shown just on the point of rising, emphasising the low elevation of Jupiter & Mercury.
A better bet might be the evening of 22nd February 2034 when at sunset you should be able to see (from East to West) Saturn, Uranus, Mars, Moon, Neptune, Jupiter & Venus - the same set as for 2025 but not in the same order. Even better, Jupiter & Venus will be just half a degree apart so at magnitudes -2.04 and -3.9 respectively they should be easy to spot even at only 9 degrees high in the dusk twilight. The C2A view of the situation is again shown below, with the Sun just having set, showing the importance of Jupiter & Venus being so close together and thus shining out more brightly than either of them individually.
But, given the hype about the Parade documented above, the easiest option might be to simply keep an eye on the media - I'm sure they won't let a good story go unreported!
