Monday, May 9, 2016

Mercury transit - from space, yes.

Those pesky clouds just wouldn't get out of the way.  The transit of Mercury started around 6:40AM but the sun was far too low in the east behind my treeline.  The sky was cloudy with clear breaks at places, and the clouds were of the cirrus variety, high and thin. Imaging the transit would be possible even through these type of clouds.

But alas, the thicker clouds were quickly approaching from the west.  So the race was on - the sun creeping slowly up in the east while the clouds moving in from the west.  By the time the sun was high enough to see from my telescope location, the clouds were just too thick.  I did get to see part of the transit, and I managed to image it, but the results were very poor.  One somewhat fair image and a short video.

The NASA SDO satellite had a much better view.  See video at: NASA Mercury Transit

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