Mercury as a Springtime Evening Star

[John]

I've had some nice views of Mercury this evening.

From our house I need to use an upstairs bedroom which has a nice western facing panorama of the river Severn estuary.

Following an imaginary line down from the crescent moon to where the Sun (and Venus) had recently set behind a cloud bank, I first found Mercury with my 11x70 binoculars looking quite bright and still reasonably high above the horizon.

I went to the trouble of carrying my 100mm refractor and a mount upstairs and was rewarded with some decent views of the 7.7 arc second desk and the fat crescent phase of the 40% illuminated Mercury at 125x through the double glazed window (not ideal ).

As the sky gradually darkened I could see Mercury clearly with the naked eye as well. Lovely sight with the crescent moon hanging up there.

As the skies were forecast to be cloudy tonight, it has been a nice bonus being able to unexpectedly view this little world

Just got to lug the scope and mount back downstairs now !

 

 

 

Edited May 15, 2021 by John