Mercury is the planet with the smallest orbit around the sun, so it always appears in twilight, making it elusive to observers.

Astronomers refer to Mercury's greatest angle east or west of the sun as a "greatest elongation," the best opportunity to see it. Mercury has seven greatest elongations in 2009. During the event, observers will be able to view the planet.

A romantic science

"Instead of roses, please give your beloved one Rose Nebula for Valentine's Day," said the slogan for an event for amateur astronomers jointly held by the Beijing Planetarium and the Society of Scientific Squirrels, a group of astronomy fans. On February 14, this activity attracted hundreds of young sky watchers, who tried their luck to win the top prize of a 60-millimeter refractor telescope.

"Astronomy is romantic," said 25-year-old Li Senhan, whose love for astronomy started in primary school. During middle school, he had to hide his hobby from his parents since they wanted him to focus on studying for the college entrance exams. Although Li never enrolled in his university's astronomy department and instead studied mathematics, he is now preparing to take the astronomy master's program entrance exam.

"I know that just like any other job, a career in astronomy will involve a lot of repetitive work and long-term observation and recording. But I also believe a lot of fun will come from the simple and repetitive work," said Li.

Li's girlfriend Yi Dong'er is a recent graduate with a degree in ancient Chinese literature. "Since ancient times, Chinese people have related stars to romance. Ancient Chinese records of astronomical phenomena are very rich and accurate and plenty of them are still referred to in modern research," she said, adding that she wants to have an "astronomy-themed" wedding.

They will not be the first to harness celestial bodies to make a special night. Guo Gang, a bank employee, and Zhou Ying, a company auditor, designed their wedding with the theme of "a love under stars." They said stars create ambience that combines the mysteriousness of the universe with romantic love. The cosmos soon enveloped every detail of the wedding: the invitation was a flight ticket to the planet of "love;" they replaced the normal table number placards with drawings of astrological signs and introductions on astronomical phenomena; they named components of the meal "eight planets on one plate" and "beauty from a comet;" even the bride and groom's stories of growing up were told in chronological order of significant astronomical events; and in their wedding bedroom, the ceiling was coated with a sea of stars while a sign read, "Mars: 35,000,000 miles away."

"Among my university classmates, I found many astronomical fans who had developed this hobby since childhood just like me," said writer Han Xiaobo, who majored in physics while studying at university. He said astronomy is a field giving amateurs more opportunities compared to many other fields. "Many important astronomical findings have been made by amateurs," he said.

The greenish, backward-flying Comet Lulin was at its closest point to the Earth, about 60 million km, on February 24. Some Chinese sky gazers were proud to spot with their naked eyes the comet that exuded the light of a gem on that day. They may have seized humanity's only chance to see Lulin, which will be unable to be viewed from the Earth for the next 28.5 million years.

Comet Lulin was discovered by Chinese undergraduate student Ye Quanzhi from photos taken by Taiwanese astronomer Lin Chi-sheng. It is one of three comets discovered by amateur sky watchers in recent years. In July 2007 Lin sent a group of photographs taken with a telescope to Ye, who had been watching the heavens since the age of five and had discovered asteroids during his observations. After Ye analyzed the images, he found a comet that had never before been recorded and named it Lulin after Taiwan's Lulin Observatory, where the photographs were taken.

Observable Astronomical Phenomena This Year

Leonid meteor shower

Date: November 18

Rate: 500 meteors per hour

Visible time: 2:00 to the dawn

Peak time period: 5:34-5:44

Total solar eclipse

Date: July 22

Lasting time: 6 minutes and 39 seconds

Main Cities: Shanghai 9:36-9:41; Chongqing 9:12-9:17; Suzhou 9:35-9:40; Hangzhou 9:34-9:39; Hefei 9:30-9:32; Wuhan 9:23-9:29; Yichang 9:19-9:24; Chengdu 9:11-9:14

Visible Mercury

Mercury has seven greatest elongations in 2009, and observers will be able to view the planet. Mercury is the planet with the smallest orbit around the sun, so it always appears in twilight.