Mercury Greatest Elongation

Dec03
by kevin on December 3, 2012 at 11:28 and modified on December 3, 2012. at 11:44
Posted In: astronomy


Tomorrow, 2012 December 04, Tuesday, Mercury will be at its greatest elongation W (21 deg) for the best viewing of the year.
This screen capture comes from a great planetarium program, Stellarium v0.11.3, and shows Tuesday morning at about 06:21 EST looking just south of east.

Also look at the planetary conjunction of (left to right, bottom to top) of Mercury, Venus and Saturn in a straight line about 15 degrees long.

It is REALLY DISAPPOINTING that the weather forecast looks bad.

On the other hand, stellarium is up to v 0.11.4 as of september… good to know. Upgraded in place and all is well. Not sure what the specific updates were in this case, doesn’t look like any new features.