Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Venus and Mercury again
The western horizon half and hour after sunset (click to enlarge)Mercury is at its greatest distance from the Sun tomorrow. Unfortunately, because the ecliptic (the path the planets take through the sky) is angled well away from vertical, this means that Mercury nevet gets much more than about 3 degrees above the horizon half an hour after sunset (the image to the left makes everything to dark, the sky will be much lighter, but I was having trouble the the daylight emulation in the program).
Unless you live in Darwin, where it will be about one and a half handspans above the horizon. But anyway, for the rest of us, seeing Mercury this time round will need a clear level horizon, like the sea or the desert or some such. I went down the beach two nights in a row and I clouldn't see it due to cloud on the horizon. But with Venus above and the play of light between the sea and the cloud, it was pretty good anyway.
# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 10:38 pm 
Click to read about or order
Click to read about or order
Click to read about or order
Click to read about or order
