Tonight was a rare alignment of three planets - Mercury, Venus and Jupiter - forming a nice little triangle just over the western horizon after sunset before dropping down too far to see.

I took my cheap-o telescope out to check out the planets. I've viewed Venus and Jupiter before, but never caught Mercury. I wasn't able to see any of Jupiter's moons - which is a truly awesome sight if you ever have the chance to see them in a telescope. But it still looked very cool, and I'm pretty sure I could make out the bands.

Last night was a beautiful light-orange full moon, and tonight a planetary alignment. Amazing stuff. :3