Mercury Evenings

Low in the western horizon, just after sunset, is a nice pairing of planets. Easily visible is the always bright Venus. But just to it’s right is the usually more elusive planet Mercury. A bright magnitude -0.2, and being near the even brighter Venus, makes this an excellent opportunity to see our solar system’s innermost planet. At the same time, high in the south in the constellation Cancer, the planet Mars is visible. And in the southeast in the constellation Virgo, you can see Saturn. It’s not often you can see four out of the five naked eye planets at the same time. But if you have a clear view of both the east and west horizons the next few nights, you’ll get your chance.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 6th, 2010 at 4:28 pm and is filed under Planets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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