Venus and Mercury

The two inner planets are close together in the Western evening sky. After many days when I could see only Venus or nothing at all due to cloud to the West, today I managed a glorious view of Venus shining brightly and tiny Mercury brighter than I could remember, both setting in the evening twilight.

I tried a quick peek through the telescope. Venus is obviously gibbous. I could not view Mercury as it was too low for my dob. It had dropped to below the neighbour's wall as seen from the low position of the dob's mount. However it was a beautiful naked eye view.

This is a photo of the two planets taken on the 5th February.