I got Mercury but I had to deal with: -Removing shrubbery -Removing the roof of the observatory -Tying back 50' high tree branches -Morning clouds And worst of all...my Quark died (yes, Valery, I am sending it back). It never reached GREEN and had horrible contrast. That said, I did get some screen ...

Outstanding! Excellent details in all parts of the transit and each feature of the sun.

Good catch

Congrats!

Winner of the English Mercury Marathon Run goes to...Alexandra!

Well done.

I will post what I have done tomorrow. I have ropes on tree branches pulling them down, the roof of the observatory off, bushes trimmed,,,all for a few more minutes.

Great share!

StarDust,
I don’t know how to pick up a pre transit mercury.

I may have figured a way to pick up another ten minutes on my second time window...if I throw a rope with a grappling hook to a branch 50’ up and can bend it out of the way, I might extend my time.

The things we do!

I have to laugh...I have been testing the timing of the event with my landscape...this led me to trimming some 20’ high vegetation on top of a very tall ladder. When I got back down after an hour of work I realized all I did was clear the telescope path to see the blocking palm trees on the neighbor...

I’m forecasted for sun. I will use 152mm stopped to 95mm and quark.

I believe I will have a 10 minute and a 5 minute window to catch the transit when the local trees will not be in the way. The five minute window will be as Mercury touches the limb so maybe I will get a prom as well!

I can't wait to attack the bunnies! Thanks all for the suggestions. Merlin, thanks for the extended narrative. You've pointed out several experiences I have very similar.

Where are these vicious little creatures? I have cleaned every optical surface I can think of and tried rotating every element in the optical train I can and I can't find the little beasties. D-ERF Objective lens Diagonal Quark 1st surface Quark 2nd surface UV/IR Cut Filter (both sides) Camera 2019-...

I do believe I have some vignette for sure. I just did not have the funds.

BTW my unit is between the camera and quark not quark and telescope.

Egad. Now I worry I did not do it right! I have the $30 ZWO with thumb screws and got it working in about three minutes. Never touched it since and never have rings.

Truly good work

Wowiwowiwwo

Nice limb and disk for certain. And pool. Be right over.

Gorgeous, smooth processing with great contrast and details.

Sharp!!! 100gb...yikes

Freddie, that is a lovely image!

Nice job, Gov. Glad to see IMPPG in your toolkit.

Rusted, Your words cracked me up. I'm still chuckling When I find a moment I will add my favorite tutorial links. But as you noted, they were hard won. There is a sub forum here which has tutorials listedbbut is is pretty thin. Mark, Alexandra, The Great Attractor (creator of imPPG) and others all h...

Nice work, Phil. To make sure, asking for workflow is for a commonly available file such as what Alfred provided. Then the numbers and workflow are relevant. I would love for Valerie to post his raw sunspot file then his obviously lovely processing Regarding the Alfred file, I love the softer-then-m...

Val, Your sunspot image is indeed amazing, but I think we'd love to see your workflow to get it. Recognizing that every optical train merits slightly different treatment, I'd love to see how you went from the Raw Image to Stacking to LR Decon (if you do) to PS/GIMP. Just a comment about using the un...