Mercury and the Slender Moon 11/03/05 - Eric Walker

A lovely pairing of Mercury and a very thin crescent New Moon. This image was taken at 18:50h on 11 March 2005 from Conon Bridge. The Moon was only 1.5 days old and 2% disc illumination. Even in the twilight you can see faint Earthshine. Mercury was a mere 3.3° from the Moon shining at magnitude -0.4. I only got 10 minutes to take my shots as we were in between heavy snow flurries at the time. To make matters more difficult, the Moon was just 7.5° above the horizon and tiny Mercury 10°. Image details: Nikon Coolpix 5700, ISO 100, 0.25sec, f/4.2, fl=71mm. www.astrophotos.plus.com