This past Monday the orbital mechanics were such that the planet Mercury, the planet Earth, and the star Sun lined up with Mercury in the middle. And thus observers here on Earth, using suitable eye protection, could watch as Mercury transited across the face of the Sun.
Unlike the previous event, I observed this transit alone and from my yard.
The transit started at approximately 7:30 AM local time, but as our place is in the woods I needed to wait until the Sun cleared the trees. And I was also battling high thin clouds which acted a bit like a haze filter. But I saw it and was able to photograph it, although I'm a bit disappointed with the resulting images, Mercury is not tack sharp.
I first used a white light filter, essentially a neutral density filter that allows safe viewing of the Sun, on my 600 mm lens. I could not see Mercury in the viewfinder or on the view screen, even at 10x magnification. Unlike the prior transit, there were no sunspots to focus on, as we are at solar minimum. You'll need to bigafy the image and even then Mercury is a small black dot in the center of the yellow disk.
I then switched to my dedicated H𝛼 scope. And while I could see Mercury when looking directly through the scope, once more I could not see it when using the camera. You'll again need to bigafy and Mercury is below and right of center, in line with the "4 o'clock" position.
It was a rather frustrating day and at the time I did not think I managed any usable images. So I was glad when I looked again at the images on my computer. And I've plenty of time to practice before the next one in 2032.
🌞 🌞 🌞 🌞 🌞
* With apologies to the Police.
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