In the second half of December 2018, planets gathered in the morning sky.  Venus is high in the southeast in Libra, while Mercury and Jupiter gather low on the horizon in the vicinity of the head of Scorpius.  On this morning, Jupiter is magnitude -1.77 and Mercury is magnitude -0.44, with 2°35'50" separating them.  Mercury will pass Jupiter two days from now, on December 21.  Unannotated image.