Mercury hovers above the horizon near a four-percent-illuminated Moon, whose darkened face may be lit by earthshine.
Use Mercury to find the slim crescent Moon some 3.5° to its right in the evening sky. Credit: Stellarium/USGS/Celestia/Clementine
The planet Mercury sits 3.5° to the left of a two-day-old crescent Moon in the evening sky tonight. At magnitude 0.1, Mercury is still bring and nearly 6° high in the west an hour after sunset. It’s now located in Cancer the Crab, having left Gemini behind.Â
With barely 4 percent of its eastern limb illuminated, the young Moon may be challenging to see. You’ll want to get to a location with a clear horizon and opt for a viewing site slightly elevated from your surroundings if possible. If you don’t see the Moon at first, use binoculars or a small telescope — or even your finder scope — to scan the sky a few degrees to the right of Mercury and at the same altitude. The Moon lies roughly in line with Mercury to its left and Pollux in Gemini to its right. With your optics, you may be able to see even the unilluminated majority of the lunar surface. This is because light from the Sun bounces off Earth and lights up the shadowed regions of the Moon enough for us to see it — a phenomenon called earthshine.Â
Mercury is now some 53 percent lit, a small change from earlier this week. If you viewed it then, can you see the difference now? It’s subtle!Â
Also look with binoculars or a telescope to Mercury’s upper left in the darkening sky. Just over 7° east of the planet is M44, the Beehive Cluster, whose stars should begin popping into view as twilight falls, especially under magnification.Â
Sunrise: 5:33 A.M.
Sunset: 8:33 P.M.
Moonrise: 6:28 A.M.Â
Moonset: 10:22 P.M.
Moon Phase: Waxing crescent (2%)
*Times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset are given in local time from 40° N 90° W. The Moon’s illumination is given at 12 P.M. local time from the same location.
For a look ahead at more upcoming sky events, check out our full Sky This Week column.Â
