Mercury in Transit at 8.24am
Notes from an observers diary (all times BST)
Got up 5.00am, outside is wet and overcast. It's still overcast at 6.00am and the transit starts at 6.11am.
Looked at satellite photos on the Web - no one seems to have any
current images. Looked at a few Web cams whilst on-line:
Dorset site is just noise
Mira site has some nice pictures at about 6.20am, when Mercury looked quite far into
the sun for such a short time after the start. So missed ingress - even on web
cams.
Drove out to chase clear skies, to High Legh, and could see sky breaking to the west, so headed off to the M56. Sun came out en-route - took first exit then first lay-by and set up telescope (Meade ETX-90).
Saw Mercury - so black and so round!!! (Textbook stuff)
Watch for about 5 minutes until about 7.15am, then the clouds came again. Looked black and thick South and East so headed West along the M56 again. Looked generally cloudy with slight breaks everywhere so decided that we may as well look at clouds from the comfort of our own back yard - so we went home. Two miles from home and the sun shone.
Arrived home at about 8.15am - telescope out onto drive for more
views of Mercury. Andrew took some digital photos while Val set up Celestron C5+
in the back garden.
(Image view as would appear in the sky (N to top, E to left)
Mercury in Transit at 8.24am
Mercury in Transit at 8.45am
Mercury in Transit at 8.52am
Andrew moved the ETX round the back as the clouds rolled in again - occasional clear patches (4 or 5 through till 10.00am).
Val had an aircraft pass across the sun whilst viewing (10.25am) - very impressive. Then more cloud. The thin cloud gave an almost out of focus image through the telescope (as though scope had dewed up, but it hadn't). A few more fleeting glimpses through till 11.20am, with Val making occasional sketches.
From about 11.22am to 11.33am we had a clear spell and watched Mercury touch the limb.
Mercury out on a limb - 11.29am
Gradually Mercury passed through, then it was gone.
An exciting, but frustrating Morning.
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