>Yes! the evening sky sure is pretty these days...

Mercury dissapeared, I believe; it will appear in a few more days in the morning.

BTW, at what latitude are you located? This affects visibility of some celestial objects.

>Was disappointed the other evening, not being able to discern the Penumbral Lunar Eclipse ...the newspapers had everyone excited, but then I realized that they are hard to observe.

Yes; the penumbral eclipses are mentioned only for completeness sake! There really isn't much to be seen.

Full lunar eclipses, OTOH, are a spectacular event - the entire moon suddenly becomes dark red! Through rays of light, refracted through the Earth's atmosphere.

>There will be an Annular Solar Eclipse on the 10th, visible here...fun skywatching these days.

Watch out for your eyes. You may be aware of this, but just in case: looking directly into the sun is dangerous. Looking through a telescope or binoculars is almost certain to cause blindness.

The recommended methods are, with a telescope: project the image, for instance, on a piece of paper placed behind the telescope; without a telescope: use a strong filter. Special filters from aluminum paper can be obtained (I found that you can replace with the aluminum foil from food packaging, like cereal - double layer for the thickness used here); you can also darken a piece of glass, over a candle.

Regards, Hilmar.