Mercury transit from the Santa Clara civic center

by Michael Swartz

What a beautiful day we had. I am so glad I risked it and stayed in Santa Clara today. About 100 people were able to enjoy viewing the sun over the course of the nearly 5 hour event.

When I arrived at work at just before 6am the sky was about half clear. I was very encouraged. But shortly after that the sky clouded up and it started to rain again. People were coming in the office offering their condolences thinking that the day would be a bust. But I reminded them that the forecast did say rain in the morning with late morning to noon-time clearing with a sunny but slightly windy afternoon. So I had not given up hope.

I left work about 10am and headed down to get some drinks and ice. Around 10:30am I noticed that the cloud cover seemed thinner and I could see a big blue patch coming our way. Yeah! My heart jumped! I was so excited. I had never seen a transit live before.

So I went back to the civic center, parked, got all my gear to a nice location by the big central foundain in the main courtyard of the main complex. I set up a few chairs, a table and prepared my telescopes. At about 10:55am I was viewing the sun and waiting for Mercury to show up.

I didn't see first contact even though I was looking for it. Somewhere around 11:12am I paused for a moment to talk with someone and then a minute later returned to looking through my binoviewers and there it was! Mercury was at second contact! Wow! What a site! Right near a prominence that looked almost like a vertical jet to help announce it's arrival. And that perfect ink black circle against the h-alpha solar background was a sight to behold. It was so dramatic! I gasped "Wow"! There were half a dozen or so of my co-workers waiting to get a peak and when they heard me they rushed right over and each took turns looking through the Orion 80 with the white light filter and then through the binos on my Tak Sky90 with the hi-res h-alpha.

In the white light I could see these neat rings around the big sunspot near where Mercury made it's entrance. In h-alpha the sunspot showed a lot of swirly turbulence, a bright strip which looked like it might be a light bridge and all kinds of bumpy contour. As it progressed along it's journey Mercury went right by a nice little filament and then slowly moved towards another active area on the opposite side of it's path. It ended up exiting just south of a nice grouping of prominences which looked like dancing flames.

Over the course of the 5 hour transit folks from the IT group that I'm part of, people from HR, planning, the power company, the fire department, the police department, my friends in the help desk group and many other people who were just wandering through the complex on business or for a casual walk stopped by to talk and see what was going on stopped by to check out the action. A couple of directors, a city councilman, some upper management from IT and ACS stopped by too. A drunk on a bike also stopped by for a view. It was a great day for mingling and sharing the event. I handed out a couple dozen scope city business cards and encouraged people to get into astronomy and enjoy the sky. Sam at Scopecity donated a really nice solar poster which I used quite a few times to explain the photosphere and chromosphere. Really fun stuff.

Alex, his wife and a friend stopped by too. Later Kevin Schuerman stopped by for a chat and a view.

I had my binoculars outfitted with solar filters too. Seeing the transit in my Canon 18x50 IS binos was quite satisfying. The mercury disk could clearly be seen and the sunspot looked quite dramatic. The image stabilization was a big hit. Finding the sun with binoculars can be a little tricky but once you get it and then click on the image stabilization it is really neat.

As the sun moved towards the west the shadows of the trees were approaching my telescope. I picked up my tripod and ran to the other side of the quad. That worked for a while but then again the shadows started approaching. So I picked up my tripod and hurried over on to the lawn. I didn't want to miss the third contact. Luckily I was able to get a spot which let a small group and myself watch Mercury hit the 3rd contact and slowly slip into the darkness of space just before the sun sank behind a tree.

It was a totally enjoyable experience. I am so glad it worked out and that so many were able to enjoy the day with me. I am also really glad that so many of you enjoyed it too. From many locations we were all experiencing it together. I'm glad to be part of this group. Thanks for all the stories, insights and pictures.

Looking forward to seeing you in the dark on a mountain sometime soon.

Posted on sf-bay-tac Nov 08, 2006 22:49:36 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.4 Dec 12, 2006 21:56:17 PT