Astroblog: Mercury In the Scorpions Head

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Mercury In the Scorpions Head

Mercury is currently in the head of the Scorpion, tonight (Wednesday 2 November) it is 1 degree from delta Scorpii, giving it an extra "eye". On this Friday ~~Thursday~~, November 4, Mercury will be at its greatest distance from the Sun, and will be at its most easy to observe. Look to the west shortly after local civil twilight (a bit over half an hour after sunset, you may have to wait a bit longer for distictive "T" shape of Scopius's head to be clearly visible). On this night the crescent Moon will also be very close to the red star Antares, so it will be a beautiful sight. The image shows what you would be likely to see roughly an hour after sunset, around nautical twilight, on the 4th.

Venus is also currently withing binocular range of lots of beautiful clusters, so will be a fine sight in binoculars.

[later edit], Yeah, I messed up my dates. And I've had more than 6 hours sleep twice in a row.

# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 7:12 am