Venus and Mercury are extremely low in the west just after sunset in late September and early October.&nbps; Mercury is about 23° east of the Sun and Venus is still at around 30° elongation; but both of them are south of the shallow ecliptic (Venus way south) so their visibility after sunset is diminished even further.  Using a telephoto lens allows one to capture them a little more than half an hour after sunset.   Unannotated image.