Mercury Sightings - Details for 2026

Mercury has six elngations in 2026. The initial sighting by Joe Stieber for each of these is tabulated below:

Elongation #1

● The first sighting of the first elongation for 2026 (the 96th elongation in a row overall) was on February 5, 2026, from Walton Ave (near Bishops Gate) in Mt Laurel, NJ. The sky was clear with just a small amount murky haze along the southwest horizon towards sunset, which was at 5:24 pm EST. Mercury was first spotted at 5:39 pm with 12x50 binoculars, about 4° from Venus at the 11 o'clock position. Venus (mag –3.9) was first sighted at 5:20 pm with 18x70 binoculars. Neither was seen with unaided eyes before they set at 5:56 pm and 6:16 pm for Venus and Mercury respectively. When initially sighted, Mercury was at 6°19′ altitude, 247° azimuth, magnitude –1.14, 5.3″ diameter and 92% illuminated. Solar elongation was 11.2°, the ecliptic had a relatively steep tilt of 67.4° to the horizon and Mercury's ecliptic latitude was –1.5°.

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At the end of 2025, the sighting streak was 95 elongations in a row, completing fifteen calendar year of spotting Mercury at every elongation beginning in January 2011. There are six or seven elongations per year. The years 2011, 2015, 2018, 2022 and 2024 each had seven (7) elongations, while 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2023 and 2025 each had six (6), as does 2026. Those 95 elongations in a 15 year span average 6.33 elongations per year. Click here for sightings in 2025. The purpose of this ongoing effort is not to set some record, especially since I have no idea what sort of record might exist. My note to Gary Seronik that was published in S&T magazine (see the 2022 Mercury page) yielded no responses. Regardless, it demonstrates that locating and seeing Mercury is not nearly as difficult as many suppose. It just takes a little planning and effort, although circumstances make some elongations easy and some difficult.

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Last Update: Thursday, February 05, 2026 at 10:09 PM Eastern Time