I've rarely been able to see the planet Mercury and i've never been able to photograph it. Based on the info on EarthSky explaining June's Parade of Planets and how visible Mercury would be, I decided to make another attempt to photograph the first planet. After locating a dark area in the desert, I used binoculars to look for Mercury. At first, no luck. But then I saw it coming into view from behind a cloud and when I looked through the viewfinder I could easily see it. I don't have fancy and expensive camera equipmemnt; just a Canon camera with a 70-300mm lens . I had no option but to hold the camera in my hands so I snapped numerous shots at different settings in hopes of getting at least one "keeper." This was the best of the bunch so I cropped it, applied a bit of PhotoShop noise reduction, and here is the result. This will never win any photo contests but it has taken me over half a century to get a picture of Mercury and six days after my 72nd birthday I finally succeeded so I am quite pleased. It's not good enough to be published and that's fine. I just wanted you to see it when I was sending my Thanks to all of you at EarthSky for giving me the info that made it possible for me to finally get a pic of Mercury. Sincerely, Gary Schenauer

Canon T7i w/TAMRON SP 70-300mm