Mercury Mornings
Published on Nov 24, 2006 at 5:10 am.
1 Comment.
Filed under planets, skywatching.
This weekend you may get a chance to see Mercury. Earlier this month, Mercury transited the Sun. So, if you had the right equipment, you could have seen that, or looked at the photos that were taken. But, now you get a chance to see Mercury with your naked eye.
Go somewhere that you have a good view of the southeastern sky. About a half hour before sunrise, you’ll see a bright star very low in the southeast. That is the planet Mercury! The best day to observe is Saturday morning, but it will be just about as good Friday and Sunday mornings, and nearly as good Monday morning.
Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, zips around the Sun once every 88 days. So, even though it was directly in front of the Sun November 8, now just two and a half weeks later, it is off to the side of the Sun, as seen from Earth. This isn’t the farthest that it gets from the Sun, but the way that the orbits work, Saturday morning it appears the farthest away from the Sun that it will for a while. We call this the greatest western elongation.  Over the next few weeks, Mercury will be lower and lower in the sky. Interestingly, Mars and Jupiter are in that part of the sky, and by the second week of December, all three planets will be very close together in a nice little grouping.Â
So, if you get a chance, and you get up early (or stay up until dawn!), go take a look at Mercury!
-Astroprof
A Ler…-- Rastos de Luz on November 25, 2006 at 12:34 pm: 1
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