I was looking for the planet alignment the other night; I could only spot two of them from my suburban front lawn--Mercury and Saturn, I think. They flared liked floodlights in a parking lot. NASA is all over the extraterrestrial traffic with a daily update site and amateur pictures from around the world:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/06may_pillar.htm
http://science.nasa.gov/spaceweather/planets/gallery_may02.html