Mercury Transit 9th May 2016

[ACross]

It was clear, very hot but windy here in suffolk. Out of 51 images this is the best of the lot and the only one with everything almost in focus. Taken with a ZWO ASI 174 on Orion Optics VX8, flapping around in the breeze.

It has been fascinating seeing others images, thank you for posting.

 

[Jonk]

Here's my humble effort...

Haha, ok I used a Slooh telescope in Arizona to take a grab, as I have had clouds and rain all day and had to watch it online.

 

[ianaiken]

Prom and surface. Still clear here but now I may have some houses in the way shortly. I need to work on the limb a bit and also I have an artefact in the sun spot due to deconvolution.

[Uranium235]

I got it im my 10x50's about 4pm, pretty small... but definitely there!

[Pig]

The only images I have are in my memory  amazing sight to see though and I got my first view of Mercury

[LukeSkywatcher]

4 minutes ago, Pig said:

The only images I have are in my memory  amazing sight to see though and I got my first view of Mercury

I would have really struggled to image it. Glad i didnt try. The image of it will live in my mind til i die.

[pblackwell]

The hardest thing yet. Took 30mins to locate the sun, then clouds, then had to spend time to relocate. Then tried use a camera for the first time without knowing how the camera works! Then by the time you attach the camera clouds came in, so switch back to wide angle lense. Then sun comes out and takes time to locate. Attach camera and repeat the process all over again! So frustrating and difficult.

Here is my very first attempt at using a camera and first time looking at the sun ?

[Stu]

Don't think I've posted on this thread yet, but apologies if I have. I was expecting nothing, so 5 or 6 brief observations over a few hours was wonderful. The seeing was mixed, poor when the cloud was passing by but not at all bad in the clear spells. iPhone shot, in accordance with tradition ?

[Jonk]

Here's a stunning one from Slooh

 

[LukeSkywatcher]

The Sun seems to be breaking through right now. Could be good views westwards.........

Dont think i'll bother. I'm happy with what i saw.

[brantuk]

We watched it on and off for around 4hrs this afternoon. It started with a few high whispy clouds fuzzing the view - but great views in the gaps in between - almost like Jonks Slooh image above at times. And we saw the sun spot group in Stu's image very clear and sharp too. Had a good 2hrs worth of stable, clear views.

And to crown it all off nicely the Moonlite focuser I ordered from RVO on Friday arrived at 9:30am in plenty of time to ditch the old GSO supplied one and fit the new. Excellent service from RVO, a superb bit of kit (my first ever Moonlite), and a fabulous event to Christen it with. Brilliant day all round!

[JB80]

In the end I got a few opportunities early on but the clouds dominated. Still what I could see on screen was stunning, I saw the Venus transit but not through a scope and this well and truly made up for it.

Tomorrow I will process the few avis I grabbed \nd see but early results seem okish.

[toilandtrouble123]

Today was my first time EVER, yes I did pop my solar observing and imaging cherry, and for once (super low self esteem when it comes to photography) I'm abso-frickin-lutley chuffed with myself with a couple of my shots.  For years I've wallowed in self pity over my ineptitude and kack-handedness, but today's given me the joy and wonder I'd always felt as a kid when gazing up at the stars. Even making the filter was an achievement I'm proud of not screwing up!! Hope others had as an amazing day as I      

 

Edited May 9, 2016 by toilandtrouble123

[Piero]

The transit was nice from here too, although I only observed it once back from work.  Nice event!

[mcrowle]

Things started to look promising by 6pm, so I packed the 70-300mm lens (with filter) and Coronado SolarMax 40 and headed to a nearby footpath where I could (in theory) see the Sun. The cloud closed in again before it could expose the Sun, but I decided to wait until the end of the event - just in case.

Luckily, around 7:30pm the Sun shone through the cloud for just long enough to get a couple of images that showed Mercury very close to the southern limb! I didn't even try to set up the SolarMax, unfortunately, in those cloudy conditions.

[Marky1973]

Didn't see a sausage.... or Mercury... or the flippin' Sun to be honest, what a miserable day.

Hey ho... maybe next time... :-)

[pblackwell]

4 minutes ago, Marky1973 said:

Didn't see a sausage.... or Mercury... or the flippin' Sun to be honest, what a miserable day.

Hey ho... maybe next time... :-)

He who stares wins dude. Maybe next time (ps - I did reuse that line from a fellow SGL) ?

[Marky1973]

If there had been something to stare at I would have been there - took the day off work specially... but the Sun made an appearance around 10am and then wasn't seen again! Still, gave me the chance to do some electrical work around the house and replace some bits and pieces that haven't been working for months!

[Mark at Beaufort]

An interesting day chasing the Sun going North. I knew that Hereford was going to be cloudy so made the decision with 3 friends from Herefordshire Astro Society to drive up the M5 and M6 to find clear skies. In the end our first stop was the Sandbach Service Area where we observed first contact. Stayed about an hour showing various members of the public the views.

It appeared that the best direction for clear skies was going North East so we headed for the Peak District and found a very nice pub - Robin Hood - the other side of Congleton. The landlord was happy for us to set up the scopes and we obliged by having a nice pub lunch and showing the customers the views.

Reasonable clear skies with some high cloud but overall a great day.

 

[John]

Very nice report and photos Mark

The short view I had was rather like the enlarged photo that you post above. My "window" down here was around 10-15 minutes and that was it for the rest of the day. Still we saw it !

One thing I noticed was just how black Mercury's silhouette was. I thought that the umbra of the sunspot groups was black but Mercury was blacker still !

A lovely event even for my rather short experience of it and publess as well !

Edited May 9, 2016 by John

[Psychobilly]

Thanks all for sharing your pics... Nothing here  a wasted day off... The rain arrived and thunder and lighting was just a few miles up the valley...

Peter...

 

[urchin]

I was very lucky in northest Northumberland, wall to wall sunshine. Here are my efforts. 250px stock 10mm and 24mm 82 maxvision eyepieces taken with a galaxy s3 phone.

[hadyn42]

Hello All

We managed to see the transit of Mercury from two locations on the Isle of Man. There was excellent viewing conditions over here on the island yesterday. I took my ED80, HEQ5 tripod with Skytee2 head attached, with of course a Solar filter fitted.  I found the best views were obtained with a 15mm BST eyepiece and an orange filter fitted.  Port Erin was my first location at 1.30pm and we viewed the transit until about 5pm at a friends house, who had never done any solar observing up untill yesterday.  I then drove home to Onchan where I set up the gear again for my wife to be able to see Mecury for a further hour, before packing up in time for tea.

There were three largish sunspots viewed with around twenty mini sunspots scattered around the main three.

Best regards,

Hadyn - IOM

[cotterless45]

Here's some pictures taken with a 3b pencil and a circle drawn around a plastic bowl, Nick.

[Lacaille]

Thanks for all the great images. It was too cloudy for any imaging where I am in France but I saw some of the live feeds that were available on the web.  After the event, I found myself wondering if anyone had created a site where several live feeds from around the world were simultaneously presented - a sort of dashboard of feeds.  That would allow you to look at any that were not currently clouded over and might also allow you to see and compare parallax effects from different points of the compass, especially at Contact.  It would be beyond my capabilities to do this but might involve an adaptation of videoconferencing technology. Has it been done for transits or eclipses anywhere?