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Mercury Transit


Zeffer

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According to my book 'Practical Skywatching' a transit of Mercury across the sun takes place on the 8th November 2006.

What's the best way to observe this using the NS8? Would Baader solar film allow the shadow to show up?

Thanks for any help you can offer!

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This was from the last one. Taken through a 6" F/5 Newt - hadn't learnt about Collimation or had a lot of practise at this point...

Also this is the thumbnail - the full size image got stolen :)

Using Baadar Solar Film.

mercury_transit_may2003.jpg

Not very good, the venus one is a lot better! Plus got a nice avi of that one :)

Ant

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It is nice to watch - especially the Venus transit - doesn't happen very often...

But they do take a long time. - about 7 hours in memory serves me correctly for the venus transit!

Long time to sit hunched up at the camera / scope...

Ant

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  • 2 weeks later...

Here's a link to a quick and dirty webpage with 19 large images. I'd recommend a broadband connection. None of the images are retouched or processed at all and are in native jpg format. More to come when I get the film back

Here's the text of an email I sent to our Arizona Observing email list:

I was able to take the day off and observe the event from beginning to end

from Stone Haven Observatory, south of Maricopa. I viewed the event in the

C8 with a Thousand Oaks type II filter and our 6" F/4.5 Dob. I took

pictures every 15 minutes with film, alternating telescopes and through both

telescopes with a digital camera to DVD. I also took video to DVD every

half hour or so. I uploaded a quick, ugly web page of 19 of the best

digital images to:

http://www.stargazing.net/astroman/merctr06/merctrans11806.html

There's no text, and the images are large, so it may take a while, (hours?)

to download. Broadband is recommended.

The video turned out pretty well, from a scientific standpoint, with WWV in

the background, I got first contact at 19:12:30something, (haven't reduced

it yet) and fourth contact at 00:13:something. Each video session was on

average 2 minutes, with first and fourth contact lasting longer.

I'm having the film images scanned to disk when developed and will put

together a Powerpoint for show and tell at the next SAC meeting.

I really had a great time doing this and only wish I'd had some others to

share it with, but since I'd have to interrupt ebery 15 minutes, it wouldn't

be much fun for others, I'm afraid.

Steve and Rosie Dodder

sdodder@hotmail.com

Visit my web site at http://www.stargazing.net/Astroman

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Had a quick look at your shots before racing out to work. Will study them later.

I get the feeling that it is hot there at present from the opening shot.

We have a very heavy frost on the ground in Kings Langley (UK) this morning and clouds.

I am off to the University of Hertsforshire Bayfordbury site to night so the clouds better disappear.

They have about 10 different domes.

Well done.

Adrian

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Steve and Rosie,

I have had a chance to look at the photos in more detail, they are very good. I looked at a map and noticed that Arizona had the transit ending at sunset. We have moved back from Summer Time to GMT in the UK so it is getting dark here at about 16:30 at present.

These transits of Mercury are rare events, apparently they only occur 13 or 14 times in a century, around the 8th May or 10th November, when Mercury is in an inferior conjunction, these are the dates that Mercury crosses the Earth's orbital plane. In May Mercury is heading South and in November it is heading North.

If you want to see Mercury again, it is observable just before sunrise along the south-eastern horizon from today, between 16 and 29 November it will be higher in the morning sky. It is back at the horizon around 13th December.

I went to the University of Hertfordshire Observatory on Friday night, It was raining very heavily so the scopes were not in action. However, they have a planetarium so we had a guided tour of the heavens, it is amazing what can be achieved via computers.

After that, there was a very interesting lecture on the Universe, or more correctly on the Local Group. The size and distances are huge, and the lecturer asked lots of thought provoking questions on how the different galaxies were initially formed and how collisions over time have occured. Also discussions on star collapse, radiation etc.

As I am new this this astronomy stuff I found the talk to be excellent and well worth the soaking I got between the car park and the building.

I better finish up, don't forget the Leonids should be active from Wednesday 15 November. Happy hunting.

Waiting to see more photos!!!

Cheers

Adrian

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Hi Adrian,

The transit ended about 20 minutes before the Sun set behind the mountains here. I have some nice film pictures coming back on Monday. I just picked the first, best, quick images from the digital ones I took that day to post. I'll do a more thoughtful presentation later, as time allows. The one thing I'd like to add is that conditions here were nearly perfect. Clear skies, transparency was excellent and the seeing held up, even as the transit ended. (The late pictures were through ~3 atmospheres of extinction, so it's a testament to dry desert air.) :D

Observing Mercury is somewhat rare, as it never gets far from the Sun. I've actually shown professional astronomers their first "live" views of Mercury! If you (or anyone) get the chance, you should definitely go for it. It's not a great target, not much detail, if any, but at least you can say you've seen it!

I think it's great you're grabbing the bull by the horns, as it were. It's good to see people go after the knowledge end of astronomy. It has so much to offer.

Cheers, and keep looking up!

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I just find all the pictures awe-inspiring. I really am looking forward to the chance of seeing one for myself. It's one thing to see a diagram of the planets orbiting the sun but to see it actually happening must be amazing.

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