Daylight (inner) planets without permanent setup

[Demonperformer]

I have been thinking about daylight observations of the inner planets, as Mercury approaches maximum elongation on 12th July.

A permanenet setup would make this fairly easy, but I don't have one of those, so have been considering options. I'm using an 8SE on the SE (altaz) mount.

It seems to me that the key point is being able to find the planet against a bright sky, without having to sweep too far and risk getting the sun in the way. A relatively good signpost would appear to be the moon, when it passes near to each of the planets. Unfortunately, closest approach of the moon to each of the planets during July occurs when they are below/far too close to the horizon to be a good time. So what follows is something of a compromise.

Starting with Mercury, closest lunar approach occurs at about midnight 14/15 July. On 14 July, the moon is between the sun and Mercury and Mercury culminates at about 3pm. At this point, the moon is 1½ days old and just over 21° from the sun. It is also about 5½° from Mercury, which is at magnitude 0.6. So my thought is, do a solar system align on the moon, then a short (away from the sun) GOTO to Mercury.

The closest approach to Venus occurs at about 5am on 16 July, which again is not particularly good. So I am thinking again about the time of Venus' culmination while the moon is between the sun and the planet. This gives us about 4pm on 15 July, when the moon is just over 2½ days old and 35½° from the sun. It is then about 7½° from Venus, which is at magnitude -4.1.

Clearly, Venus will be an easier option than Mercury (when isn't it??), but what do people think about the above? Doable?

Thanks.

[Stub Mandrel]

I did it this way... spend an evening imaging, park the scope and put my workshop overalls on top after unplugging everything.

I could then wire up and unpark a ready-aligned scope in the day.

At about mid-day I was able to find Venus easily using the finderscope, but seeing was awful (or scope was red-hot).

I did briefly find Mercury using a spiral search, but it 'flew' past too quickly.

I tried again later when at about 5 when teh scope was in shade. and got sharp (but featureless!) images of venus.