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ate latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere - as in southern Australia - Mercury rises about one hour before the sun.
• Although our featured sky chart at the top of this post shows the exceedingly thin waning crescent moon by the horizon, North American viewers are very unlikely to see the moon in the harsh glow of morning twilight. As seen from mid-northern Asian latitudes, the moon shines much closer to Mercury, and it might be possible to see both worlds in the same binocular field of view together. That would be cool.
• Rising time of sun, moon and Mercury in your sky
• Bottom line: Before sunrise on Thursday, August 16, use the super-brilliant planets Jupiter and Venus to find fainter Mercury, our sun's innermost planet. Mercury reaches its greatest morning elongation on August 16. That means it's now farthest from the sun for this predawn apparition and will soon begin descending in the predawn sky again, becoming lost in the sunrise glare. So look, next chance you get.
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Their orientation with respect to the horizon may be different from where you are. But, from everywhere around the globe now, you can use the two super-brilliant planets Jupiter and Venus to locate Mercury near the horizon an hour or more before sunrise.