IF YOU are up for a Skywatching Challenge this week, you can try to find Mercury in the evening sky - but you'll need binoculars. Straight after sunset, start scanning the western sky through them, just above the trees, and if you spot a tiny, silvery glint of light that's it, that's Mercury.

Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, and circles it very quickly - so quickly that if you lived on Mercury you'd have a birthday (and Christmas Day) every 88 days.

Having seen Mercury, wait for the sky to get dark then enjoy the sight of the Milky Way's misty trail cutting it in half, stretching from north east to south west. Through binoculars you'll see it's made of billions of stars, thick as pollen grains.

Stuart Atkinson

Eddington Astronomical Society of Kendal