Transit of Mercury on Monday (May 9)

tiger roach

Urban Bovine Knievel
Will anyone else be watching?

It is a relatively rare event (but much more common than a transit of Venus). I don't think I have observed one though, so I'm taking Monday off. The weather here looks iffy, will keep my fingers crossed.

If you are new to this sort of thing, you will need a scope with a solar filter or project the image.

Lots of info here including timing and observing tips:

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astr...ady-for-may-9th-transit-of-mercury-041320162/

And here's a cool pic from a previous transit:

MercuryTransit_Dierick_960.jpg
 
Well the weather did its best to screw me, but I persevered. :mad:

It was rainy, cloudy and windy early on. Finally about 11:30 the clouds started breaking up, and I got in nearly an hour of quality observing before the clouds and rain came back. Mercury was a tiny, sharp black dot on the face of the Sun. The Sun itself was fairly quiet, but there were a couple of nice, detailed sunspot complexes to look at.

I didn't do any photos, even in the "clear" time window clouds were coming and going so it would have been an exercise in frustration, and would have cut into my limited observing time.
 
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