Solar System Rising Over Fire Island.

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.