Mercury and Venus in the evening sky, as seen from the mountains of southern New Mexico.

Mercury is slightly above center in the transition zone where the twilight sky colors are going from yellow to blue.

Venus is much lower, rather close to the distant trees and a bit right of center.

Venus appears fainter than Mercury because we are seeing Venus through much more atmosphere, which makes it dimmer, and it's in a brighter sky background.

Both of these planets are climbing higher day by day in the southwest. Mercury will stop climbing higher after about 2 - 3 weeks and then move back down. Venus will keep climbing for months.

The second image is annotated with short green lines that point to the location of these two 'evening stars'.

The photograph was taken with an APS-C sensor camera and a 135mm lens on a fixed tripod. This was about 30 minutes after sunset.

#Venus #Mercury #Evening #Twilight #Photography #Astrophotography #NewMexico #Astronomy