Mercury Transits the Sun, 11/15/99


Here's a few pictures I took of the Mercury Transit on 11/15/99. These were taken at approximately 5 minute intervals, not tightly timed because of the setup. I'd set up both scopes in the parking where I work. The small one is the 4.5" newtonian, modified ala Rik Hill of A.L.P.O. in Tucson. The big one is obviously the C8 with a full aperture Thousand Oaks Type 2 filter installed. These are the first prints from the negatives, and the scanner sucks, so my apologies for the "quality". I'm going to have these redone at a higher end photo shop soon, so stay tuned.

NEVER, EVER LOOK AT THE SUN WITHOUT PROPER SAFETY EQUIPMENT!

Enjoy!
Click for full size Here's a picture of the basic setup. On the far right is the solar telescope. Next to it on the left is the 8" SCT, showing the "Pieramyd mount" and the solar filter.
Click for full size Here's a prime focus shot of the sun before the actual transit began. Note the large sunspot group just above smack in the middle. There's also a group on either side and below center.
Click for full size Shortly after first contact.
Click for full size About 5 minutes later.
Click for full size Nicely on the disk of the sun.
Click for full size Halfway...?
Click for full size Just about done...
Click for full size Third contact
Click for full size Maybe 2 minutes left....
This was really a cool thing to see! And what a busy week. Two days later, I stayed up all night watching the Leonid meteor "shower". Not much this year compared to last, but last year was amazing anyway. Anyway, I got lots of folks from work to look through the scope and lots of "oohs" and "ahs" and "That's cools"! It was fun.