I started watching the stars during the time we spent camping out in Ryan and Camilla's backyard last year. The first planet I saw was Venus, the brightest of the bodies. I then found Jupiter and Saturn. Once identified, they were easy to find with your eyes. You could make out the four moons of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn with a telescope. I then found Mars.
The only planet left to discover was Mercury, which is difficult to find because of how small it is and its proximity to the sun. The Sky and Telescope website pointed out that Mercury would be located near the new moon on Tuesday, November 30th. I waited to sunset, drove to Sunset Cliffs, and searched the western sky for Venus and the new moon. You can see Venus in the upper left corner of the photo below. The moon is in the lower right corner, but hard to find.
The next photo is a close-up of the moon. Its a narrow crescent on the right side of the photo. If you zoom in a few inches to the left of the moon you will see a blury white pixel, this is Mercury.
Both photos above were taken with my cel phone. I used the digital zoom to enhance the moon in the second image. I could not see Mercury with my naked eyes. Fortunately I brought along a pair of binoculars. I was able to see the planet using these. I took a photo through the eyepiece of the binoculars. See below.
The planet is in the upper right corner of the image but very hard to see. Mercury will appear once I zoom and crop the image above. See below.
Mercury is the blurry white dot on the lower left side of the photo.
While the image in real life was slightly more impressive, the real excitement came from realizing I have now seen every planet that can be easily seen with either the naked eyes or binoculars. The only planets left to view are Uranus and Neptune, both requiring expensive telescopes.
I have met another novice stargazing milestone :)
