Mercury, 6.9° from Sun, Returning to Dusk
Taken by Helio C. Vital on July 12, 2016 @
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
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Details:
The animation and the photos show Mercury between 5:33 and 5:49 pm (GMT-3h) (20:33-20:49 UTC), when it was only 6.9° from the Sun and 3.5° above Rio`s horizon.
A Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX300 camera with magnifications ranging from 100 and 250 times was used. The photos show the elusive planet coming back to dusk. In spite of its current negative visual magnitude (m=-1.5), its image is still barely overcoming the intense brightness of the surrounding background sky. In fact, its contrast is subtle even when high magnifications are used, since it is deeply hidden in the Sun`s glare and still far from naked eye visibility. However it will join Venus on July 16, when the interesting pair, separated by a distance of only 0.5 degree and a bit further from the Sun (11°), will become a challenging target for observations with binoculars. Venus, currently 9 times brighter than Mercury, was 3.2° above it when the photos were taken.
Photographer's website:
http://https://www.flickr.com/photos/98669508@N03/
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