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For the best way to see Mercury, you compute its distance from the Sun, and 
search in the computed direction
with a binocular. Once you found it and know where it is, you can easily see 
it with the naked eye, if the distance from the Sun is large enough.
I did it successfully. The main thing is to know where exactly to look.

Same works with Venus. You can see Venus while the Sun is still present.

Alex.

 
________________________________________
From: NavList@fer3.com [NavList@fer3.com] on behalf of Tony Oz [NoReply_TonyOz@fer3.com]
Sent: Monday, March 20, 2017 9:53 AM
To: eremenko@math.purdue.edu
Subject: [NavList] Could I have seen Mercury yesterday evening?

Hello!

Yesterday evening I tryed to have a look at Mercury after the sunset. 
Unfortunately, there was a cloud band just above the horizon - I could see 
the Sun going down the horizon, I could see some sky above the cloud strip, 
above which there were some clouds again. I.e. there were two "windows" - one 
ON the horizon, ~2  wide in vertical direction, then the cloud strip also 
~1.5 ~2.5  wide, then another patch of the sky also ~1.5 ~2  wide.

Few moments after the Sun got under the horizon - I could see some planet in 
the upper "window". It was reasonably bright. Since I'm at 60 N - the Sun 
goes down rather sideways, so I could not tell whether that planet was 
immediatelly above the Sun or it was to the left of it.

From NA I know that Venus is near the Sun-Earth line, and Mercury is on the 
east elongation or thereabout. So I want to know which of the two planets it 
could be I was looking at?

I never saw Mercury before - at least knowing for sure  it was Mercury. How 
bright/dim is Mercury on max. elongation compared to Venus's dark side?

Warm regards,

Tony

   

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