You may, if you have a clear western horizon, be able t spot Venus, as people have been doing. Mercury is much more difficult.
See the end note about enlarging illustrations.
On the evening of October 30 Mercury will be closest to Venus, but dimmer, lower, setting sooner after the Sun.
Venus is continuing to creep out eastward from behind the Sun. Mercury, in the foreground, has been doing the same, but is slowing – later on Oct. 31 it will be at its stationary point against the starry background – so it is falling back in front of Venus.
They are closest – just short of 3 degrees apart – on Oct. 31 at 5 by Universal Time, which by North American clocks is 4 or more hours earlier, thus mostly back in Oct. 30.
The magnitudes of Venus and Mercury are -3 and 0,5, which means that Venus, though farther away, is about 25 times the brighter.
This space view, from 15° north of the ecliptic plane, shows the paths of the orbits of the planets and their paths in October, with sightlines from Earth to the other planets and the Sun at Oct. 31, 0h Universal Time.
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ILLUSTRATIONS in these posts are made with precision but have to be inserted in another format. You may be able to enlarge them on your monitor. One way: right-click, and choose “View image”, then enlarge. Or choose “Copy image”, then put it on your desktop, then open it. On an iPad or phone, use the finger gesture that enlarges (spreading with two fingers, or tapping and dragging with three fingers). Other methods have been suggested, such as dragging the image to the desktop and opening it in other ways.
We were lucky to get one very perfectly clear evening on Sunday, so I was able to see Venus and Mercury (the latter with binoculars). The impending gathering of Venus with Jupiter and later on Saturn that Rick referred to was easy to visualize coming with all four planets in view that evening.
Then on Monday evening, I caught Uranus and Neptune in binoculars.
Thank you for this reminder of this evening planetary arrangement. I always enjoy seeing them naked eye, especially with the thin crescent of the new moon close by. Venus was easy and brilliant, and the moon was lovely, but I forgot to bring binoculars so I did not see Mercury in the dusk, though I waited several minutes and tried to find the best space between trees and buildings against the southwestern horizon. Jupiter was higher up to the South
Astronomy is full of coincidences. By ecliptic longitude, asteroid 2 Pallas is currently conjunct Venus and Mercury. By equatorial declination Pallas is 6 degrees north of the equator, while Venus and Mercury are about 20 degrees south of the equator, so they’re not close to one another in the sky. Pallas is currently close to Alpha Serpentis, about two thirds of the way from Jupiter to Corona Borealis on the map above. And Pallas is currently 10th magnitude, so invisible in twilight. Astronomy is full of coincidences.
I’m looking forward to viewing Venus with the gas giants in the background.