The Inferior Planets

Abstract

The innermost planets of the Solar System—Mercury and Venus—have fascinated amateur astronomers for centuries. This author vividly remembers turning his only telescope—a small 60-mm refractor—on the intensely bright white apparition low in the western sky after sundown. Using a medium power eyepiece, the image was focused to a tiny, albeit featureless white hemisphere in the twilight. Mercury took a few more years to spot, owing to its closer proximity to the Sun and lower altitude in the sky. And while a 4.5-in. reflector was then in the author’s possession, the view was far from impressive: a tiny, pink, roiling ‘gibbous moon’ just skirting the horizon.