Finding Mercury the easiest way

I do like the little Celestron NexStar 5. It led me quickly to Mercury this evening well before it was detectable to the naked eye and when there were no stars visible to do a normal two-star alignment.

I simply used the "solar system" align feature. In this mode you tell it the time and date, which I did to within five or 10 minutes, then point it at Venus and tell it when Venus is centered. That's it. You can then let go of Venus and ask it to swing to Mercury, about 22 degrees away and bingo – there it is, pretty well centered in the eyepiece,

BTW – I had made no attempt to even level the scope and I'm sure this alignment isn't any good for more distant stuff, but this kind of quicky alignment in twilight conditions has proved very useful to me several times, this being the best example. At other times I have used it when I want to take a quick peak at the moon or any bright planet.

I always enjoy seeing a nice line up of planets like this – it makes it especially easy to imagine the original nebula from which the solar system developed, spinning into a disc and creating these little whirls – worlds. You can sense the disc quite easily as you look at the line up starting with the glow from the Sun on the horizon and thence to Mercury, Venus, Saturn, and the moon – and if I were down at the beach I would also see Jupiter on the same arc, way over at the other horizon. For me it all co mes together in one of those magic moments.