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http://www.space.com/spacewatch/060217_night_sky.html
Currently, Mercury is visible about 45 minutes after sunset, very near to the horizon, a bit to the south of due west. But, if your sky is clear and there are no tall obstructions to your view (like trees or buildings) you should have absolutely no trouble in seeing it as a very bright "star" shining with just a trace of a yellowish-orange tinge. Currently, Mercury is shining at a very bright magnitude of –1.0.
In the evenings that follow, Mercury will diminish—slowly at first -- in brightness, but it will also be arriving at its greatest elongation, 18.1º to the east of the Sun, on February 24.
Shining at magnitude -0.3, Mercury will appear as a very bright solitary "star," low in the western sky and setting more than 1½ hours after the Sun—just after evening twilight has ended. As a result, this will be Mercury's best evening apparition of 2006...
Through telescopes, Mercury, like Venus, appears to go through phases like the Moon. Just a week ago, when Mercury starting appearing in the western twilight sky, it was a nearly full disk (92 percent illuminated...)...
By the evening of March 3, Mercury's brightness will have dropped to magnitude +1.5; only a trifle brighter than Castor in Gemini and only 1/10 as bright as it is now. In telescopes it will appear as a narrowing crescent phase, its disk only 16 percent illuminated. In all likelihood, this will be your last view of it, for the combination of its rapid fading and its descent into the brighter sunset glow will finally render Mercury invisible before the end of the first week of March.
*The article mentions the rumor that Copernicus never saw Mercury. I've viewed it through my telescope a couple of times. Will try to spot Mercury again.
We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...
--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)
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