18° above the horizon at

dawn on

23 Dec 2024.

Dec 2024–Jan 2025 morning apparition of Mercury

The desk under lists the altitude of Mercury at

dawn
over the course of the apparition. All instances are given in Los Angeles native time.

Mercury will brighten quickly firstly of its morning apparition because it emerges from inferior conjunction.
Previous to its apparition, it handed between the Earth and Solar, at which era it had its unilluminated facet
turned in the direction of the Earth and so appeared as a skinny, barely illuminated crescent. Because the apparition proceeds,
this crescent waxes and turns into gibbous.

Since Mercury can solely ever be noticed in twilight, it’s significantly tough to seek out when it’s in a skinny
crescent section. Thus, will probably be considerably simpler to see within the days after it reaches its highest level
within the sky – when it’s going to present a gibbous section – than within the days beforehand.

Altitude of Mercury at dawn

A graph of the section of Mercury is
out there right here.

Apparitions of Mercury

Observing Mercury

Mercury’s orbit lies nearer to the Solar than the Earth’s,
that means that it all the time seems near the Solar and is misplaced within the Solar’s
glare a lot of the time.

It’s observable for

only some weeks
every time it reaches biggest separation from the Solar – moments referred
to as biggest elongation. These apparitions repeat roughly as soon as each

3–4 months.

Mercury’s section

Mercury’s section varies relying on its place relative to
the Earth. When it passes between the Earth and Solar, for instance, the facet that
is turned in the direction of the Earth is fully unilluminated, like a brand new moon.

Conversely, when it lies reverse to the Earth in its orbit, passing virtually
behind the Solar, it seems totally illuminated, like a full moon. Nevertheless, at
this time it’s also at its most distant from the Earth, so it’s really
fainter than at different instances.

Mercury reveals an intermediate half section – referred to as
dichotomy – at roughly the identical second that it seems furthest from the
Solar, at biggest elongation. The precise instances of the 2 occasions could differ by a
few days, solely as a result of Mercury’s orbit is just not fairly completely
aligned with the ecliptic.

Mercury’s place

The coordinates of Mercury when it reaches dichotomy might be:

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

The sky
on 20 Dec 2024

Supply

The circumstances of this occasion have been computed utilizing the DE430 planetary ephemeris printed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

This occasion was robotically generated by looking out the ephemeris for planetary alignments that are of curiosity to beginner astronomers, and the textual content above was generated primarily based on an estimate of your location.

Associated information

Picture credit score

© NASA/JPL/MESSENGER