The Sky Today on Sunday, August 2: Mercury at greatest western elongation

The solar system’s smallest planet reaches its greatest western elongation from the Sun, 19° from our star in the sky.
By | Published: August 2, 2026

A sky chart showing the eastern sky on August 2, 2026, one hour before sunrise. Mars glows as a warm orange point in the upper center of the image. The twin stars Castor and Pollux are visible in the middle left, Mercury shines brightly just above the horizon in the lower center, and the red supergiant star Betelgeuse is visible to the right. The sky fades from deep blue above to a warm twilight glow near the treeline silhouette.
Mercury glows brightly above the eastern horizon an hour before sunrise on August 2, the day the tiny planet reaches its greatest western elongation from the Sun. It is now in Gemini, near the Twins’ brightest stars. Also visible is Mars, higher in the sky in Taurus, and the figure of Orion to the right of Mercury. Credit: Stellarium

Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column. 

August 1: Open cluster NGC 6709

Mercury reaches its greatest western elongation at 4 A.M. EDT, standing 19° from the Sun. The tiny planet reaches an altitude of almost 5° above the eastern horizon an hour before sunrise, glowing at magnitude 0.2. It’s the brightest object in Gemini, sitting to the right of the Twins’ heads, marked by the stars Castor and Pollux. Mercury is about 9° to the right of the lower star, Pollux. Over to the far right of Mercury is the familiar hourglass shape of Orion the Hunter, his three-star belt standing vertically in the sky just above the horizon. 

Through a telescope, Mercury’s disk stretches 8” across. It shows off a crescent phase that is 39% lit; you may be able to spot the phase visually if you’ve got good seeing and steady air near the horizon. Follow the planet as long as you can in the brightening sky, but make sure to put away any optics well ahead of sunrise from your location, which may differ from the time given below.

Sunrise: 5:59 A.M.
Sunset: 8:12 P.M.
Moonrise: 10:08 P.M.
Moonset: 10:03 A.M.
Moon Phase: Waning gibbous (80%)
*Times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset are given in local time from 40° N 90° W. The Moon’s illumination is given at 10 P.M. local time from the same location.

The Moon passes 5° north of Neptune at 4 A.M. EDT on August 3, with Saturn standing nearby. The best time to catch the trio is early in the morning around 4:30 A.M. local daylight time on the 3rd, when they are highest in the southern sky.

A sky chart showing the southern sky on August 3, 2026, at 4:30 A.M. The crescent Moon is visible near the top center, with Saturn labeled just to its left. Neptune is highlighted with a red dashed circle just below and to the right of the Moon. The star Fomalhaut is labeled in the lower right. The sky is deep blue-black with a faint twilight glow near the dark horizon.
The Moon forms a triangle in the southern sky with the planets Saturn and Neptune on the morning of August 3. Note that while Saturn is visible to the naked eye, Neptune (marked by the red crosshairs) will require optical aid to view, and may be challenging with the bright Moon so nearby. Credit: Stellarium/USGS/Celestia/Clementine

The bright Moon is unmissable, anchoring the apex of the triangle. To its left is magnitude 0.5 Saturn, the brightest point of light in this part of the sky, outshining any of the surrounding stars. Below and just right of the Moon is Neptune, but the distant ice giant is not visible to the naked eye. You can try finding it with binoculars or a telescope, 4.8° south of the Moon and 10.5° southwest of Saturn. From its great distance, the planet’s disk appears just 2” wide in the sky, and may have a bluish or grayish hue compared to any background stars. 

By contrast, Saturn’s disk stretches 18” across in a telescope, with its rings just over twice that diameter. Its brightest moon, Titan, is about 2.5’ to the planet’s east, while several fainter 10th-magnitude moons cluster closer. You may have a hard time spotting these, however, in the moonlight. 

Alison Klesman is senior editor of Astronomy magazine. She holds a Ph.D. in astronomy and has studied a variety of topics, from minor planets to supermassive black holes.

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