Mercury is beginning its best morning apparition of the year, which will stretch into mid-December before it ends. Here we see the winged messenger still relatively dim at magnitude +0.72 in central Libra, making an isosceles triangle with α and β Librae. Over the next week or so, its elongation will increase as will its brightness; by December 2, it will be brighter than magnitude 0.0, then reaching a peak brightness around the 14th at magnitude -0.50 in Scorpius. Unannotated image, constellation boundaries. |