Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Friday, February 8th.  The sun will rise at 7:52.  It’ll be up for 10 hours and 9 minutes, setting at 6:01.   The moon, 2 days before new, will rise at 7:01 tomorrow morning.

This evening after sunset Mercury and Mars will appear together, less the moon width’s apart.  It will take a very low horizon to the southwest and pristine skies to spot these two.  They should start to be visible in binoculars starting about 6:30.  Both Mars and Mercury are on the far side of the sun.  Mars is heading around behind the sun.  It will be in conjunction with the sun on April 17th.  For several weeks around that time the sun’s radio noise will interfere with communications with the Curiosity rover and the martian satellites that relay its signals, so it will remain motionless gathering weather and other data it can do in a static mode.  Mercury will continue to move away from the sun from our point of view until the 16th of this month.

Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Mercury passing Mars at 6:45 p.m. on February 8, 2013. Created using Stellarium.