Transit of Mercury

ChrisJ

First, orient yourself with the Sunspotter:


Then step up to the 10" to get a better view:


Climb stairs to the 14" for a closeup. Also look at the prominences with the H-Alpha filter (very cool, actually).


Finally, move onto the Solar Telescope. The image is projected onto the wall. The little grey smudge being pointed at is Mercury!


The pencil marks indicate the path, maybe a little hard to read. Original image is here if you're interested. There's also a sun spot in the upper right.

In LA, at least you can almost always see the Sun!!! (Though the seeing is still pretty terrible)

pathfinder

I enjoyed seeing your discussion and your image of the trasit of Mercury.

Imppresive how very small it looks against the sun, isn't it??

ChrisJ

Thanks, Path... Unfortunately, I don't have a solar filter for my 70-200, or I would've taken a couple of direct shots. If I'd brought my P&S, I may have been able to get one through an eyepiece, but alas, no.

Honestly, looking at the solar prominences is much cooler.

Skippy

ChrisJ wrote:

First, orient yourself with the Sunspotter:
Then step up to the 10" to get a better view:
Climb stairs to the 14" for a closeup. Also look at the prominences with the H-Alpha filter (very cool, actually).
Finally, move onto the Solar Telescope. The image is projected onto the wall. The little grey smudge being pointed at is Mercury!
The pencil marks indicate the path, maybe a little hard to read. Original image is here if you're interested. There's also a sun spot in the upper right.
In LA, at least you can almost always see the Sun!!! (Though the seeing is still pretty terrible)

Wow the size of that Telescope
Thank you Chris for this informative thread, nice to see the kids taking an interest........ thanks for sharing......... Skippy (Australia)

Awais Yaqub

Great informative series ! thanks for sharing

Nikolai

Great show, Chris!
I enjoyed it! Thanks for sharing!

ChrisJ

Thanks guys! As astronomical events go, it wasn't terribly exciting photographically. Much more fun to actually look in the 'scopes and see Mercury. Transits don't happen very often, so I wanted to capture it in some way...