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[Centaur]

Mercury is about to begin its finest apparition this year as an evening star for northern hemisphere observers, following its superior conjunction behind the Sun on 2012 FEB 07. This apparition will conclude with the planet’s inferior conjunction between Earth and Sun on MAR 21.

My detailed article describing Mercury’s late winter evening apparition appears under the links for my related graphics at www.CurtRenz.com/mercury

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

[Centaur]

Tomorrow (March 4) Mercury will be at this apparition's greatest eastern elongation of 18.2°. The same day it will be in dichotomy, i.e. 50% illuminated like a Half Moon. Afterward it will appear as a crescent. On March 5 it will be at its greatest altitude at 30 minutes after sunset as viewed from Chicagoland of 11.4°.

[Paulie pchris00]

Still haven't seen it as an evening planet.

[patrickm]

If it ever clears up in next few days, I
will suit up and hump a scope over to Horner to check it out. Still have only seen Mercury in binos or telephoto. 11.5 is pretty high for us!

Thanks for reminder, Curt!

[magic612]

I'll have a segment on this for "Eyes on the Sky" this coming week - video should be ready on YouTube in a few hours.

[magic612]

Curt, I captured some video of Mercury last night at greatest elongation. I had to wait for it to rotate beneath some north-to-south-moving clouds, but spot it I did. Here's the video:

[Centaur]

You must have had fun with that, Dave. Thanks for sharing. It's good to know that Mercury is still alive and kicking.

[magic612]

I did have fun - my younger daughter accompanied me over to the school to get the video. I let the camera run outside the car while we sat inside and talked. Nice conversation and good company! And she saw Mercury.

Editing it was fun, too. Got some really great Moon/clouds video after I got home as well, but that's for b-roll footage to use in future projects.