And farther to the left and down will be the mighty constellation of Orion. The winter sky is already the most beautiful of the year, in my opinion, and adding Jupiter and Saturn makes it even better. Jupiter and Saturn will both be in retrograde motion at the start of the year, which means they will appear to be moving very slowly westward relative to the background stars. Since they will be positioned close to other bright objects, this motion should be easily apparent as the days go by. In particular, the planets will appear to get closer together.
Retrograde motion is caused by the motion of the Earth around the sun.
Since Earth is closer to the sun than Jupiter and Saturn, it orbits the sun more rapidly, and passes the outer planets about every 13 months on its inside track. Since Jupiter is closer to the sun than Saturn, it has the larger retrograde motion and appears to get closer to Saturn, even though as seen from the sun, it is moving eastward away from Saturn. Venus will also be spectacular during January and February, by far the brightest object in the sky after the sun and the moon. Look for it in the southwest right after sunset. In fact, once you know where to look, Venus is so bright it can be seen before sunset.