Mercury - a cross spectral blob?

[virtualpilot45]

Is there something wrong with my telescope? When viewing Mercury through my 10mm SW ep and 2x SW Barlow I seem to get quivery red and blue blobs. A half-moon like shape is visible, but only by looking at one colour. Is there something I'm doing wrong? When I took a video of it and processed it with Registax I managed to align the RGB and got this.

Any help/advice appreciated

[yeti monster]

Mercury is like that, being so bright and so low, it'll shimmer red through to white and boil away summink rotten.

I'd say that you focus is slightly off. Yesterday I set my initial focus on Jupiter, which made finding Mercury easier and processing has given me a decent phase. Also your collimation could be a tad out.

[brianb]

Differential atmospheric refraction - when you look at objects low in the sky, the atmosphere is acting as a prism ... it's not Mercury, or your scope. The only things you can do are to observe when the object is higher in the sky (which means in full daylight for Mercury) or to use a coloured filter to kill the dispersion - red is helpful as the seeing is steadier in red anyway.

[virtualpilot45]

Thanks Is it safe to view Mercury in daylight?

[brianb]

Is it safe to view Mercury in daylight?

Yes but finding it might not be. Do NOT use the finder unless the sun is screened from the observing site. A good goto scope or a properly aligned equatorial mount with setting circles is very helpful indeed, in fact pretty near essential for Mercury - you can often get away without for Venus which is also best observed in daylight for the same reasons.

[Phil Fargaze]

I managed to get Mercury in the scope tonight(wed) and found the image was split into red and blue. I`m glad to find out that it was the atmosphere and not the scope. In moments of good seeing I could just discern a phase.