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[Centaur]

The elusive little planet Mercury has begun its apparition as an evening star following its superior conjunction behind the Sun on 2010 MAR 14. This will be a fine apparition for observers in the northern hemisphere, and extremely difficult for those south of the tropics.

I’ve created two graphics illustrating Mercury’s evening apparition as viewed from Chicagoland and Sydney. They should well serve observers in the respective hemispheres. They can be seen by clicking www.curtrenz.com/astronomical then going to the inferior planets.

All dates given here are based on CDT (UT-5). Mercury will achieve dichotomy (50% illuminated like a Half Moon) on APR 05. Before that date it will appear gibbous and afterward a crescent. It will achieve its greatest eastern elongation of 19.3° from the Sun on APR 08. It will reach its greatest altitude at 30 minutes after sunset from Chicagoland also on APR 08 at 12.6°. While decreasing in brightness, it will then fall to inferior conjunction between Earth and Sun on APR 28.

Mercury will be separated by only 3° from Venus early in the morning of APR 04, making APR 03 the better evening for North Americans with APR 04 almost as good. However, there will be no official conjunction between the two in either celestial longitude or right ascension. Instead it will appear as though Mercury is chasing toward Venus for several weeks, and then falling back exhausted shortly before success is achieved.

The 2% illuminated waxing crescent Moon will appear to pass about 1° north of Mercury on APR 15. Mercury will not appear to pass near any first magnitude stars during this apparition.

Photos and descriptions of Mercury during the current evening apparition would be welcome additions to this thread.

[Paulie pchris00]

Finally saw Mercury last night, about 7:30 PM. I started taking pictures soon after I saw Mercury, and kept taking pictures for about twenty minutes. The tiny planet only showed up in a few though.



Venus, before I saw Mercury.



Venus again. Mercury was visible to me, but not in the photograph.



Zoomed in, Mercury shows up, though is hard to see.



Again, Mercury is just barely visible.



Venus & Mercury

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Paulie,

Great that you imaged Mercury.

Many people have gone through their lives without ever noticing elusive little Mercury.

I recall how excited I was when I first saw Mercury telescopically, and it displaying a Moon-like phase...and reddish. Even in my modest 4.5" Newt scope then, the planet was a great find.

Let's make it a point to show as many people Mercury this spring, before it recedes from our evening skies.

Cool capture...

[Paulie pchris00]

Mercury is so hard for me to get on camera. This picture was taken at Valparaiso University's campus observatory, Friday, April 9, 2010. Look almost straight up from the pole to the left of the tree.

I had fun that night, but only 5 visitors showed up. One guy brought his two sons out early about the time I took this picture, so they got to see four planets at one time. It's always cool to point out a planet or two, but four is just fanatastic!

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[Paulie pchris00]

Last night, Saturday, April 17, I was out watching the sunset, and admiring the young crescent Moon and nearby Venus in the western sky. Knowing Mercury is still in the mix shortly after sun down for only a few more nights, I wanted to see it one last time.

I hadn't seen the tiny planet since I attended Valparaiso University's observatory open house April 9th. I had my two telescopes set up, but was keeping the mirrors covered until it was darker. I could have been lunar observing, but I thought Mercury would be fairly simple to catch, especially with binoculars. I waited. I scanned the sky. I waited some. I scanned the sky with binoculars. I looked up and saw Mars. I looked for Mercury again. I took pictures of Venus and our Moon. I waited for Mercury. I turned around and saw Saturn shining. You get the picture.

For more than a half hour I delayed any serious observing to see a tiny planet that is not especially fun to observe telescopically. I finally did find it with binoculars, and then my 6" Dob, but I had cut into the limited time for lunar observing before the sank low in the thick atmosphere. I think after seeing the Moon, Venus, Mars, and Saturn, I mostly wanted to add Mercury to the list, especially since I had a chance to add Jupiter in the early morning. It could have been my first chance to see the five classical planets in the same astronomical night.

Should I be glad that I made a rather tough find, or should I have moved on to the more interesting Moon and perhaps even Saturn earlier? As I said, Mercury isn't of much interest to observe telescopically, but the same argument can be made for many deep sky objects, especially in smaller aperture telescopes like mine. Deep sky objects can be very dim, and without much structure. A larger telescope can bring out more detail in some faint DSO's, and long exposure astrophotography can show what the eyes will not see, whereas little Mercury isn't likely to be helped much by either of these.

I observed many objects throughout the night, observing until the morning sun blotted out Jupiter, so my time spent looking for Mercury didn't hinder any other observations. In fact, I spent quite a bit of time trying to locate two comets, and wasn't successful with either one. I merely wanted to add "comet" the list of types of objects that I had seen. My night would have been quite successful with just Venus, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter on my planet list. (Jupiter, rising just before the sun, and observed just as it rose above the distant trees, didn't show banding until it had risen much higher, and was in fairly bright sunshine by then. It could be argued that the Jovian planet was not an interesting observation, either.)

So when is a planet (or any difficult to find object) just not worth the effort and time that it takes from other observations?