Mercury is in the midst of an excellent morning apparition in the second half of December, with wide elongation from the Sun, pretty good altitude above the eastern horizon, and bright magnitude.  This scene shows Mercury shining at magnitude -0.30 (brighter than all stars except Sirius and Canopus) in mid-twilight over the Rappahannock River east of Fredericksburg, Virginia.  A last quarter Moon high in the south brightened the sky to the point where I wasn't able to get the nice orange/azure blue color palette that makes twilight photos so appealing.  Unannotated image