Transit of Mercury Underway

by Bill Drelling

11:31 PST

The transit is off to a great start in Los Angeles. I've viewing with a Meade LX200GPS 8" using a 2" 27mm Panoptic. The transit has started with Mercury entering the disk of the sun near a very large sunspot. It makes for interesting comparison regarding the size of the sunspot.

11:51 PST

This is the first transit I've watched live through my own scope. What is striking about this to me is the size and shape comparison between the sunspot and Mercury. Mercury is much smaller than the sunspot and it is a perfect black circle against the sun. The sunspot is quite large and dense in the center, but has a wide area around it where it is not very dark at all. It is a normal looking sunspot to my eye, even if large, but it looks very cool when you compare it to the planet's clean and crisp shape and size.

Hope you guys are having clear skies up there in the Bay area.

12:32 PST

Mercury is somewhere around 1/4 to 1/3 of the way across the disk. It is moving along at a comfortable pace. I'm in and out because it is very sunny and hot down here.

I took some pictures of the transit, film of course, and will post them if any come out. Later on I'll shot a few more once the planet gets to the 75% point or so. There is no wind down here so the scope if very stable for pictures. Unfortunately, focusing has to be done by eye since my Stiletto Focuser only works at night. Also, the hartman mask I have is a n ighttime focusing aid. My solar filter is pretty small, so it only coves one opening on the hartman mask.

Anyway, the transit is going great! Even my elderly parents have enjoyed taking a peek through the telescope.

11/09/2006

It isn't much, but here is the photo of Mercury I took yesterday. The two links are to a full sized version and a resized version (1818 x 1228 pixels and 600 x 405 pixels for the smaller one) -- both are under 200kb. Mercury sure was small!

Full dimension version:

http://gatorchaser.net/mercurytransit2006/mercurytransit.jpg

Small dimension version:

http://gatorchaser.net/mercurytransit2006/mercurytransit_small.jpg

Data on the photos:

Fuji Print Film, 200 Speed, Nikon FM-10 Film Camera, Meade LX200GPS 8" SCT. The photo is a stack of 3 separate photographs. They were taken from Fountain Valley, CA.

Posted on sf-bay-tac Nov 08, 2006 11:31:26 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.4 Dec 12, 2006 21:35:24 PT