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Mercury hunters report in

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#26 antarex

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Posted 09 March 2025 - 12:55 AM

This week, Mercury peeks out from hiding by the Sun for its evening/eastern elongation - the furthest it will appear in the sky away from the Sun after sunset. This makes it the easiest time to see Mercury in the evening sky. It will still be low on the horizon for most people. I got my first sighting of Mercury in a good while last night. 15 minutes after sunset it was barely above the trees. If you've got a decently clear horizon, you've got a chance of seeing it too. This will not be the only or best opportunity to see Mercury this year; July 3 has a better evening elongation.

 

Mercury is one of the brightest objects in the sky and visible without a telescope. Currently, its apparent size is well more than half of Mars's apparent diameter right now. So while it's still very small in a telescope, its phase can be seen easily. The conventional wisdom says you can see no features on Mercury with a telescope. But where's the fun in that? Old time visual astronomers attempted several maps of Mercury with their large professional grade telescopes, with questionable results.

 

So my question for the group is: has anybody been able to spot albedo features or differences on Mercury before? I have seen CN members report albedo features with Ganymede, so it seems within reach. On the other hand, the maps made by past astronomers had almost no correspondence to the photos taken by space probes...

I have a 6" SC. I have managed to obtain images of Mercury with the astronomical camera, with albedo spots from some craters. Last time a few days ago, if you want to see in the planetary imaging section.
Visually through the eyepiece, although I have tried several times, I have not yet been able to notice any surface detail!
At most, a clear gibbous or sickle-shaped silhouette, but always with a uniform white color (in broad daylight, with the planet even 50° above the horizon). The best observations are always between 250x and 333x with a yellow filter or variable polarizer. At 166x the planet was nice and sharp and still, but really too small to notice anything!
I assume that, to be able to notice some minimal detail of its surface, a really excellent seeing is needed (assuming optimal collimation, focusing and acclimatization of the instrument) and in any case not less than 250x and in broad daylight with the planet high in the sky.
The 6 inches of my obstructed telescope are also not the best for contrast... where instead refracting telescopes excel! Surely, with a 6-inch refractor it would be easier, or obviously with a mirror of at least 8 inches.
Anyway, I will continue to try, it is now a personal challenge!

 

Ps: It would be interesting to have testimonies of those who have managed to observe surface details of Mercury at the eyepiece, perhaps using better setups.


Edited by antarex, 09 March 2025 - 02:45 AM.

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#27 chrysalis

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Posted 09 March 2025 - 03:22 AM

My best image from the 11-11-2019 transit through the 12" - handheld camera over eyepiece

 

 

 

Mercury Transit 11-11-2019 BEST.jpg


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#28 treadmarks

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Posted 09 March 2025 - 04:09 PM

I have a 6" SC. I have managed to obtain images of Mercury with the astronomical camera, with albedo spots from some craters. Last time a few days ago, if you want to see in the planetary imaging section.
Visually through the eyepiece, although I have tried several times, I have not yet been able to notice any surface detail!
At most, a clear gibbous or sickle-shaped silhouette, but always with a uniform white color (in broad daylight, with the planet even 50° above the horizon). The best observations are always between 250x and 333x with a yellow filter or variable polarizer. At 166x the planet was nice and sharp and still, but really too small to notice anything!
I assume that, to be able to notice some minimal detail of its surface, a really excellent seeing is needed (assuming optimal collimation, focusing and acclimatization of the instrument) and in any case not less than 250x and in broad daylight with the planet high in the sky.
The 6 inches of my obstructed telescope are also not the best for contrast... where instead refracting telescopes excel! Surely, with a 6-inch refractor it would be easier, or obviously with a mirror of at least 8 inches.
Anyway, I will continue to try, it is now a personal challenge!

 

Ps: It would be interesting to have testimonies of those who have managed to observe surface details of Mercury at the eyepiece, perhaps using better setups.

When I last looked at Mercury, it was so low and the seeing and dispersion so bad I could barely make out the phase. I have adjusted my expectations accordingly.
 



#29 NinePlanets

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Posted 09 March 2025 - 09:31 PM

This evening Mercury was an easy find with binoculars in a yellow-orange sky 3-1/2 finger widths (or a bit less than a binocular field) to the south (lower left for we mid-northers) of the magnificent Venus (which is a very obvious crescent in the 8X binocular).

 

Mercury is a pleasant little crescent in the C5 that will get a bit thinner and a bit larger over the next few days before it gets too far into the solar glare. Right now it is a nice naked-eye object as the yellow sky fades to blue. I wasn't gong to take the C5 out of the garage until I accidentally spotted Mercury with binocs as I was looking at Venus. That motivated me.

 

A bonus was watching a nice lunar occultation of a 0.17 mag star I didn't know about until I swung the little scope around to take a peek at the moon and noticed it nearing the terminator. Always a nice thing to watch!  :)



#30 dhferguson

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Posted 09 March 2025 - 09:52 PM

Greetings,

 

Attached is an image of Mercury taken 3/8/2025 with an 8" Edge SCT, x2 Barlow, and ASI224MC camera. There was no ADC in the optical train so differential refraction is still dominant. That is despite the best Autostakkert could do to minimize it. Seeing was poor-to-average (we work with what we get) and latitude of collection was 37.6 deg N, 25% of 23165 frames, no filter aside from the UV/IR cutoff camera filter.

 

Happy observing always,

 

Don

 

Attached Thumbnails

  • 20250307_C8_x2_Mercury_ASI224MC_23165fr_25%_ASRS.jpg

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#31 antarex

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Posted 10 March 2025 - 02:06 AM

When I last looked at Mercury, it was so low and the seeing and dispersion so bad I could barely make out the phase. I have adjusted my expectations accordingly.
 

Unfortunately, if you want to observe Mercury well, you have to do it during the day when it is high in the sky. 

At sunset, even at the best elongations, it will always be too low, and immersed in turbulence. If you want to observe Mercury during the day, you need to do it in the shade (possibly shielding the sun with a building), having taken care to have carried out a good alignment of the mount (for example the evening before) and to have it previously in hibernation (provided that it has the goto, and has the "parking" function).


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#32 Jon Isaacs

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Posted 10 March 2025 - 05:54 AM

I have seen Mercury these last two nights.  The first night, it was a 4 degrees elevation when I first saw it.  There wasn't much to see except for some rather extreme atmospheric dispersion.  Last night was better.  I could see that it was elongated and probably a crescent.  My wife and a friend of hers both saw Mercury naked eye and in the scope.

 

They found Venus and Jupiter more impressive.

 

Jon


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#33 alceo

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Posted 12 March 2025 - 04:54 PM

I haven't seen mercury in a long time. Yesterday I pointed to Venus still with the sun in the sky, with the FOA60 and a Skywatcher AZ pronto, Venus is very easy and now it is beautiful, mercury is very close and quickly appeared in the field of vision. I was surprised by how well the phase was appreciated, but very small. Today I wanted to repeat with a larger telescope but it was cloudy.


Edited by alceo, 12 March 2025 - 04:56 PM.


#34 Dave Mitsky

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Posted 12 March 2025 - 09:20 PM

I observed Mercury and Venus earlier tonight using the 17-inch classical Cassegrain and its 5-inch achromatic finder scope housed in the Naylor Observatory's French Dome and my 15x50 Canon IS.

I was not able to see Mercury naked eye tonight but was able to see it several times last week.

I took some hand-held afocal photos with my iPhone but won't be able to post them until later.
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#35 Dave Mitsky

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Posted 13 March 2025 - 05:43 PM

This is one of the hand-held iPhone shots of Mercury that I took yesterday evening using a 38mm Agena SWA and the Naylor Observatory's 17" f/15 classical Cassegrain.

Attached Thumbnails

  • Mercury 3-12-25 iPhone 17-inch Classical Cassegrain 38mm Agena SWA IMG_9024 Processed.jpg

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#36 bob kelly

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Posted 15 March 2025 - 04:53 PM

Mercury to the left and a bit down from Venus.

About 45 minutes after sunset March 11th.

Canon XS on tripod 127mm zoom lens at f/7.1 for 5 seconds at IO 200.

Too big for cloudynight, so at

https://bkellysky.su...mercury-sinking

 



#37 Dave Mitsky

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Posted 18 March 2025 - 12:15 AM

It was very low in altitude, but I was able to observe Venus on Monday evening using my Canon 15x50 IS.  Mercury was actually a bit higher in altitude to the left of Venus, but I was unable to sweep it up.  According to Stellarium, Mercury's magnitude has dropped to 2.3, which was reduced further to magnitude 3.6 by atmospheric extinction.


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