Date & Time: April 23, 2009 20:45 EDT
Location: Tuckahoe State Park, MD
Sky: Clear, light wind
Seeing: Bad (1/5) Transparency: Excellent
Equipment: 25cm Newtonian f/6 with 9.7mm Plossl

Notes: Springtime is always the best time to get a look at Mercury during an evening appearance. About an hour after sunset while waiting for the sky to darken at Star Gaze XV the messenger planet was easy to spot about 10 degrees above the horizon. As usual there was little more than a phase to be discerned in the eyepiece, the combination of turbulent seeing (Saturn barely showed any global detail when viewed) and low altitude wrecking havoc with the image. At the moments of semi-steady seeing it appeared to be at just past dichotomy, a very fat crescent.