Mercury is in the latter stages of a moderately good evening apparition, so now it is slowly dimming with each passing day, but it remains only slightly below the ecliptic and still has an above-average elongation from the Sun.  Here we see Mercury just having passed the Praesepe or Beehive Cluster in Cancer, which we marked on the image even though it is too faint to see.  On this date, Mercury is 25°50'40" from the Sun and shines at magnitude +0.65, which makes it brighter than Altair.  Unannotated image.