7 planets will be on display tonight but you only have a short window to see the stunning sight

"Seven planets will be visible in the evening sky," Bill Cooke, NASA astronomer based at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, told Fox News Digital. 

"And three of them are going to be easily visible."

Planet hunters hoping to catch a glimpse of the spectacular display need just a few simple items for the optimal experience: clear weather, a dark sky and a pair of binoculars or a telescope to see the more elusive ones.

"If you look out west after sunset, very close to the sun will be the planet Saturn," Cooke said. 

"But it'll be so close, it'll be sort of lost in the twilight glare - so you'll need a pair of binoculars." 

Saturn will be about nine degrees above the horizon. 

"You'll have about 20 minutes to see Saturn, which will set very soon after sunset," Cooke said.

Next on the list will be the planet Neptune. 

"Neptune will require a telescope - no ifs, ands or buts about it," Cooke said.

But then there will be three planets very easily visible.

"Next will be the brightest thing in the sky outside of the moon," he said. "The planet Venus. It'll be that bright, starlike thing people see in the west after sunset. Easy-peasy to see."

After Venus, there will be a dim planet that's hard to see. 

"If you go farther east, you'll need a pair of binoculars to see the planet Uranus," Cooke said. 

"And after Jupiter, the farthest east of all of them will be the planet Mars," Cooke said, "which will look like this pale, reddish-looking star. Those are your planets." 

If you've got a clear night and a relatively dark sky, seeing at least three planets is very nearly a sure thing.

"Venus will knock your eyes out, so you can't miss it," Cooke said. 

"Jupiter, which is also very bright, and Mars - those are the three easy targets for your eyes. Saturn, Mercury and Uranus you can see with a pair of binoculars, but Neptune would require a telescope."

Also, just getting outside the city limits can significantly improve the effects of light pollution, which fades the contrast between stars and planets and the night sky. 

The next time these seven planets will form a parade is in 2040, but in Oct. 2028 there will be another parade involving five planets. 

"This one is a bit unusual in that, in theory, all seven are visible in the evening sky at the same time," Cooke said.

"We had a planet parade last year with a few bright planets, but not all seven visible at the same time." 

"Seeing the moon turn blood-red is always fun," Cooke said. "A total lunar eclipse creates a blood moon, and it's one of those events worth staying up for."

Cooke said the phenomenon occurs when the Earth passes directly between the sun and moon.

"When the moon passes into Earth's shadow, you would think it would turn black," Cooke said, "but because the atmosphere bends light, especially the red part of the spectrum, the moon looks like it's red."

"Now even with phones, like the modern Androids or iPhones, you can set that sucker up to take a sequence of images and catch the entire eclipse," he said. 

"So not only can you see it, but you can create a record of it, simply with your phone camera."

Several meteor showers - Lyrid, Perseids and Geminids - will grace the skies throughout the year, too, but Cooke has his favorites.

"There are two good meteor showers every year," he said. 

"The Perseids and the Giminids. Everything else is just OK." 

The Persieds meteor shower will take place August 12-13, but Cooke said the moon will interfere a bit with it this year. 

The most impressive meteor shower of the year will be the Geminis in mid-December. 

"That's going to be your big one," Cooke said. 

"The Lyrid is a moderate-strength shower," he said. 

"To be honest with you, I wouldn't send anybody out to look at that one."