Solar System Rising Over Fire Island
			
		
		
			Credit & Copyright:  
Larry Landolfi (Landolfi Photography)
		
		
			If you wait long enough, the entire Solar System will rise before you.  
To see such a sight, however, you will need to look in the direction of the 
ecliptic. 
All of the planets 
and their moons orbit the Sun in nearly the same plane, the 
ecliptic plane.   
From the Earth, this means that each day they will all rise in nearly the same direction - and later set in the opposite direction.
Ten years ago, a series of time exposures caught, left to right, the 
Sun, 
Venus, the 
Moon, and Jupiter, all rising in the 
ecliptic plane behind 
Fire Island, 
New York, 
USA.  
Exposures were taken every six minutes and 
digitally superposed on an image taken from the same location at sunrise.  
Smaller members of our Solar System, including most 
comets and many 
asteroids, do not always move along the 
ecliptic plane. 
The picturesque Fire Island Lighthouse, visible in the foreground, 
was built in 1826 and is still in use today.