Mercury is at its greatest distance out into the morning sky (its greatest western elongation).
See the end note about enlarging illustrations.
Take another look at our description of Mercury’s behavior this year, and the graph showing that, during this March excursion, the elongation Mercury reaches is the greatest, and the appearance in the sky is the highest for the southern hemisphere, yet it is the lowest for us in the northern hemisphere.
Mercury was at its descending node through the ecliptic plane on March 3; passed 0.3° north of Jupiter on March 6; and on March 10 the very slender waning Moon will pass Jupiter and Mercury.
Home planet department
Reality can be the opposite of what it purports to be.
A study by Stanford University and the University of Washington has shown the enormous extent of the falsehoods spread by social media, too quickly for them to stopped by fact checkers
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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.
Sometimes I make improvements or corrections to a post after publishing it. If you click on the title, rather than on ‘Read more’, I think you are sure to see the latest version.
This weblog maintains its right to be about astronomy or anything under the sun.
I tried for the morning solar system train on the 9th, saw the Moon, but Jupiter only through binoculars. Mercury and Saturn may be hiding in my photos: https://bkellysky.wordpress.com/2021/03/10/early-morning-down-low/
Anthony must be more motivated than I am, because I didn’t will myself to get up early enough to see the planets until this morning, March 9. Nice view of the Moon lower right of Saturn and Mercury lower left of Jupiter. And of course us northerners are envious of Roberto’s view of the planets standing almost straight up from the horizon :)
I had my first views of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mercury during their current apparitions this past Thursday morning March 4, and I was able to see the conjunction of Mercury and Jupiter Friday morning. In addition to seeing the planets as points or tiny disks of light, I also enjoy “seeing” them (including our own dear Earth) in their orbits around the Sun, in my mind’s eye.
Excellent views of Saturn, Jupiter and Mercury this morning (Monday 8 March) from SE Australia.