Seeing planets at night and by day

Ben Cacace, a regular Central Park birdwatcher and amateur astronomer, writes:

It was good to see so many people last night (June
23rd) at the north end of the Great Lawn. Showing up
with equipment were Rik, TomC, Peter, Marie, myself
and a few others. Many people stopped by to view the 3
planet conjuction and Jupiter. At 3:50pm yesterday
afternoon I set up the scope to view the planets in
daylight and succeeded in seeing Venus (very bright)
and Mercury (difficult to see since you had to be
looking directly at the planet to pick it up). When I
moved away from the eyepiece it took a minute or 2 to
relocate Mercury. Saturn was not seen until 6 minutes
before sunset which is technically not a daylight
observation IMHO.

Re: Closest approach of Venus & Mercury: I will be at
the north end of the Great Lawn in Central Park, which
is roughly around 84th St., on Monday the 27th of June
for the closest approach of Venus / Mercury. I should
be there around 10:30-11:00am. See map of park:

Minimum angular distance between Venus and Mercury (as
Richard notes) is at noon (12:01pm) on June/27th with
an angular separation of 3.9 arc minutes.

Date (EDT) / Separation
2005 Jun 27 12:01pm / 03' 53"

Just for comparison the separation of the naked eye
double star in the bend of the handle of the Big
Dipper (Mizar and Alcor) is close to 12 arc minutes!

At sunset on the 27th of June the Venus / Mercury
separation will be 7.5 arc minutes.

See you soon.

Ben