This is a rare event (13 or 14 times per century), deserving of a special page. So I have made a page, like those in my Astronomical Calendars for the previous transit years – 2012 and 2006 – and put it into this website.
Go to the “Astronomical Calendar” link above. At the bottom of that page, you will see the link to this Mercury transit treatise.
If you live anywhere between south-eastern Alaska across Anerica to Europe and the Middle East and Africa, you’re on the side of the Earth where the Mercury-specked Sun is in view for at least part of the five hours in which the transit is running.
A speck-like planet before the vast face of the blazing Sun is not something you should even dream of trying to look at with the naked eye. It’s an occasion for -users of telescopes – or binoculars or pinhole devices – who know how to use the precautions.
But there are likely to be, in your neighborhood, kind people setting up their instruments to give passers-by a chance to see the awesome sight.
My morning scene of a few days ago shows how Mercury’s path happens this time to slant across the Sun. If you’re in North America west of the Mississippi, you may want to start observing at dawn, because the transit will have already started.
Good luck with this Veterans Day entertainment!
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It had been cloudy the mornings prior to the transit, but on the 11 Mother Nature cooperated nicely and we were able to view it by projection using my 60 mm refractor. Also had a solar filter, but I found that it was easier to show other people via projection: Mercury’s disk is tiny! Showed it to the curious neighbors as well as my kids’ neighborhood friends who also stopped by for a view. A grand spectacle!
I saw it begin and cross about 8 percent of the solar disk before clouds moved in.i used my pocket Borg 25mm refractor with an Altair 15mm eye piece and 1000 Oaks solar film.i think that I worked out they eye piece with that particular small apeture scope should be producing 13.5x magnification.at 13.5x Mercury was a small black disk sadly clouds blew in putting a stop to my viewing.i tried to photograph it using a bracket and Android phone but the sun was too bright, even with the filter,to show much else plus I can’t figure out how to turn down the brightness of the phone!my second Mercury eclipse I saw another a few years ago using a cheap 70mm spotting scope, Celestron I think?,a 25mm opticron monocular,since lost sadly as it’s been all over the world with me,and some Russian 20×60 binoculars with made in the ussr on them!
Thanx for the post and the feature on the transit. We are on standard time now so subtract 5 hours for EST
I’m at the ready for it going to be using my 25mm pocket Borg,said to be the worlds smallest astronomical refractor, and 1000 oaks solar film I would have preferred the baader film but I’ve run out of it.baader is more pliable than 1000 oaks although on the negative side it can get tiny holes in it which 1000 oaks doesn’t.
Thanks Guy!
If anybody happens to be on Bernal Hill in San Francisco Monday morning, stop by for a look at the Sun and Mercury through a Hydrogen-alpha telescope.