Mercury Rising at Dawn
An attempt to observe the Old Moon at dawn on Wednesday 22nd, less than 24 hours before New Moon, failed due to cloudy conditions and because it may have been too thin to see anyway. However a lucky break in fast moving cloud, near where the Waning Moon had appeared the day before, provided a brief letterbox glimpse of the elusive planet Mercury rising alongside a lone Eucalyptus tree in a saddle on a hill in Cecil Kop Nature Reserve. A looped x 60 speed time-lapse animation has been produced from eighteen still pictures taken between 5.23 and 5.25 am and will be posted as a comment.

Hand-held Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ60 in sunset mode

Photoshop Elements 15 - image size reduction. Crop and register 18 others to produce a looped x60 speed time-lapse animation.