Ready for 9th May Mercury transit

[Knighty2112]

55 minutes ago, Mark at Beaufort said:

It looks like I will have cloud cover in Hereford throughout the Transit. Checking various weather sites I need to travel North possibly East Midlands which is between 1.5hours and 2 hours away. Any suggestions on a suitable site because I might have a few people with me.

Hi Mark, not from that area so don't know any specific sites in that area that might be suitable other than finding a quiet site off the A42 area somewhere near Donnington Park area, you could contact the East Midlands astronomy club for any suggestions.

https://www.eastmidlandsstargazers.org.uk/

[LukeSkywatcher]

Sunny and 20C on Monday here according to the weather people.

[Knighty2112]

2 hours ago, LukeSkywatcher said:

Sunny and 20C on Monday here according to the weather people.

Yes, let's hope they've got it right!  

[LukeSkywatcher]

3 minutes ago, Knighty2112 said:

Yes, let's hope they've got it right!  

Apparently from Sunday into next week there is warm (20C+),sunny and dry weather gonna hit the UK and Ireland which is coming from France and Spain. Up until sunday its gonna be humid with torrential showers.

Today was very humid.

[Dave In Vermont]

"Mostly Sunny" is our forecast - revised. Yesterday it claimed rain. I'll take this!

http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=44.47587621800045&lon=-73.21206791399965&site=all&smap=1#.VR236ZNZqM8

The link above will speak volumes of my state-of-mind.....

Love the home-brew solar-filter, Nick!

Dave

[Knighty2112]

31 minutes ago, Dave In Vermont said:

"Mostly Sunny" is our forecast - revised. Yesterday it claimed rain. I'll take this!

http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=44.47587621800045&lon=-73.21206791399965&site=all&smap=1#.VR236ZNZqM8

The link above will speak volumes of my state-of-mind.....

Love the home-brew solar-filter, Nick!

Dave

Fingers crossed for you!  

[Bino Pete]

Sorry if it's already been asked but what magnification is it best to view the transit at?

[Stu]

24 minutes ago, Bino Pete said:

Sorry if it's already been asked but what magnification is it best to view the transit at?

Just play around till you get the best view, but x50 often works well for a full disk view with some detail in the ARs

[Bino Pete]

3 minutes ago, Stu said:

Just play around till you get the best view, but x50 often works well for a full disk view with some detail in the ARs

Thank you, I'm setting my scope up at the local school, will you be able to see Mercury at x50?

You'll have to forgive my ignorance but what does AR stand for?

Thanks

[Knighty2112]

1 hour ago, Bino Pete said:

Sorry if it's already been asked but what magnification is it best to view the transit at?

I've been using my 15mm EP which gives me 44x magnification for good whole views of the sun. But for detailed close up of any ARs (which stands for active region) I use 12mm, 6mm or even 4.5mm EPs. I'm pretty sure you'll still see Mercury at 50x still. 

[Stu]

50 minutes ago, Bino Pete said:

Thank you, I'm setting my scope up at the local school, will you be able to see Mercury at x50?

You'll have to forgive my ignorance but what does AR stand for?

Thanks

Yes definitely, I saw it with 10x25 solar binoculars when it last happened.

AR means active region, basically the large sunspot groups with umbral and penumbral areas.

This link shows the sun and the latest designation for the visible ARs

https://m.solarmonitor.org/index.php?date=20160426

[Knighty2112]

Here's a photo from NASA to show the size of Mercury against the sun. Here's the link that shows the animation of an earlier transit too;

http://nasa.tumblr.com/post/143945596634/mercury-in-the-spotlight

[Stu]

If you think about it, we can see shadow and moon transits on Jupiter quite easily at say x100. The moons are around 1 to 1.5 arc seconds in diameter.

Mercury is currently around 11.5 arc seconds in diameter, roughly ten times the size. A bit of simple logic says you can probably see it at x10. I will give it a go with my finder scope with Baader filter and see. It's a very high contrast feature so should be quite obvious

[Knighty2112]

From Astronomy Now, the times for the start and end and position of where Mercury will be on the Sun too.

 

[Dave In Vermont]

I'll be stacking a Baader 8 - 24mm Hyperion Zoom in my 80mm F.5 ST80 refractor with my new 2" GSO 2X Barlow. That mess will be almost as long as the telescope itself. 100X will be the highest mag. I'll also have my Baader Solar-Continuum Filter on hand.

Good luck all!

Dave

[Stub Mandrel]

It's been a bright sunny day here today, despite CO telling me 98% cloud all day!

After all teh over-optimism it looks like it's swung the other way. Hope its right about Monday being clear. Better charge my tracking batteries :-)

[Knighty2112]

1 hour ago, Dave In Vermont said:

I'll be stacking a Baader 8 - 24mm Hyperion Zoom in my 80mm F.5 ST80 refractor with my new 2" GSO 2X Barlow. That mess will be almost as long as the telescope itself. 100X will be the highest mag. I'll also have my Baader Solar-Continuum Filter on hand.

Good luck all!

Dave

Cheers Dave. Hope the weather holds out for you over there!  

[Knighty2112]

OK, after taking in account Stu's earlier comments in this thread about the larger size filter the better, as it's too late now to get a new Baader solar filter sheet to make a full size 120mm filter, I decided to give the filter I use on my smaller 70mm frac a go. The solar filter on the 70mm frac was made to be the same size as the diameter of the end cap at 93mm approx, so this gives me 40mm diameter more of filter to look at the sun than through the 53mm aperture on the lens cap I made the other day.

Testing it out in the sun now and all is well. Definitely holds up better to higher mags well, and the view does seems crisper too even in my 15mm & 12mm  EPs I plan to use mostly. Fixing it to the scope itself is very Heath Robinson and not pretty, but it isn't blowing off, or causing any other problem. I didn't want to alter it more as I still want to use it still on the smaller frac occasionally.  

 

[DRT]

I am now ready...

[Pig]

It appears as though the weather has changed for the worse in Northants for tomorrow. The Clear Outside forecast was showing green up until around 3pm tomorrow but now it has changed to red so it looks as though I may be travelling north to see the transit. In fact this will be the first time I have seen Mercury !!!

[Stub Mandrel]

Mine forecast has become worse too :-0

Looking at the Met Office surface pressure chart, I suspect that all bets are off one way or the other - the actual weather seems to depend on a huge low fragmenting and buffeting off in different directions. I bet there's a really low level of certainty on current predictions.

 

[andrew63]

Some ingenious devices on here  - hope it's clear for all.  Forecast in S Wales is not good for tomorrow. I have just been out to try a quick low tech image just in case.  This is at 15x projected with st80  masked down and took with phone - i can make out a sun spot - it's at the centre bottom third of image so will hopefully show Mercury.  

 

Andrew

[Pig]

32 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Mine forecast has become worse too :-0

Looking at the Met Office surface pressure chart, I suspect that all bets are off one way or the other - the actual weather seems to depend on a huge low fragmenting and buffeting off in different directions. I bet there's a really low level of certainty on current predictions.

 

Yes the forecast does appear to a tad hit & miss, Rugby is not so far from here is forecasted as blazing sunshine  I hope I haven't wasted a days holiday.

[DRT]

Beautiful clear skies here in north Derbyshire at the moment and my assortment of canons are out ready to catch the transit

 

Might add the DSLR to the Baader wedge later if the sky stays clear.

[Knighty2112]

21 minutes ago, DRT said:

Beautiful clear skies here in north Derbyshire at the moment and my assortment of canons are out ready to catch the transit

 

Might add the DSLR to the Baader wedge later if the sky stays clear.

One for every member of the family eh? Hehe! Yes, blue skies too in East Yorkshire. Still got to set up my ST120 frac to view the show. Got a 6mm WO SPL EP I bought from a member just now through the post this morning, so it will get its first light out on the Mercury transit.