Mercury and Venus at dusk

I spent some quality time on my balcony last night
with my old C8 and guests Mercury and Venus.

Venus is obvious. I've been routinely seeing it a couple
of hours before sunset, and have followed it this
apparition from a small nearly-full object to the growing
half phase it is now.

Mercury took a bit of doing. I couldn't see it naked-eye,
so I scanned the ecliptic with binoculars to see where
it was. With some landmarks from the binoculars I
reacquired the tiny spark in the scope's finder, then
threw enough magnification at it to see a tiny off-white
half phase planet.

It was a school night so I didn't do Jupiter or Saturn.
They'll keep until the weekend...

Laura Halliday VE7LDH "Que les nuages soient notre
Grid: CN89mg pied a terre..."
ICBM: 49 16.05 N 122 56.92 W - Hospital/Shafte

Laura Halliday wrote:
snip
Venus is obvious. I've been routinely seeing it a couple
of hours before sunset, and have followed it this
apparition from a small nearly-full object to the growing
half phase it is now.

Hi Laura,

Beautiful, isn't it!? I love seeing Mercury naked eye. And Venus is just
ablaze at -4.1 magnitude.

If by 'growing half phase' you mean 'getting closer and appearing larger in
angular diameter', you are absolutely correct. If you meant 'phase
increasing to full', I'm afraid that's not exactly right since it's
currently heading toward a thin crescent later in July.

Clear Dark Steady Skies,
Dave Jessie

"laura halliday" wrote in message
ups.com...
I spent some quality time on my balcony last night
with my old C8 and guests Mercury and Venus.

Venus is obvious. I've been routinely seeing it a couple
of hours before sunset, and have followed it this
apparition from a small nearly-full object to the growing
half phase it is now.

Mercury took a bit of doing. I couldn't see it naked-eye,
so I scanned the ecliptic with binoculars to see where
it was. With some landmarks from the binoculars I
reacquired the tiny spark in the scope's finder, then
threw enough magnification at it to see a tiny off-white
half phase planet.

It was a school night so I didn't do Jupiter or Saturn.
They'll keep until the weekend...

Laura Halliday VE7LDH "Que les nuages soient notre
Grid: CN89mg pied a terre..."
ICBM: 49 16.05 N 122 56.92 W - Hospital/Shafte


Thanks for posting this. I hauled my XT-12 out of wraps a few minutes after
2100, EDST.

Hot and hazy with mostly cloud covered sky -- moon was dim and fuzzy, Venus
was blazing away and Mercury was a tiny speck in the binos.

Got a good look at Venus -- it's a half-moon shape. Normally Venus is
blinding through my scope but I think the haze knocked off the brightness
enough to allow me to get a good look. Mercury was soon swallowed by a
cloud bank but at least a got a look at a tiny orange-red ball -- color
probably was from dust in the atmosphere.

Saturn was very dim -- I'm going back out in a few minutes to check on it.