The spring of 2001 saw a nice planetary gathering in the evening sky, comprising Jupiter, Saturn, and Mercury.  By this late date, Saturn is too low in bright twilight to be seen, but Mercury is easy to the far lower right of Jupiter, almost level with Aldebaran.  Jupiter is magnitude -1.99, while Mercury registers a -0.88 reading, which makes it brighter than all stars save for Sirius.  They are separated by 11°47'20" and getting closer each day.  Unannotated image