I was lucky to have decent weather all day for once, right up to the end, it clouded up at the end of the transit but I was still able to grab some information there through clouds and poor seeing. But up to that point it was a wonderful day of observing and I imaged a little bit along the way to show the photosphere and chromosphere when the seeing would allow at finer image scales.
Transits are interesting because they are a great thought experiment, centuries old, regarding our placement within the cosmos, solar system, etc. We see other planets, but they never transit, then there's two planets that do transit our star, so logically it allows us to consider our placement in our solar system relative to our star and relative to several other planets. This is huge since there was a time we thought we were the center, before the heliocentric model was thought of. Also transits allow us to better determine distances between the planets and the sun via parallax to get more and more accurate at figuring out real distances (we're already quite good at this, considering we can land things on Mars!). Another interesting bit about Mercury is that it's not the same size anymore and has changed size over time.
I shared the day with my family, they got to see the transit. My daughter of 6 years of age saw her first transit, hopefully more to follow in the future as I have very few left in my time. I was interviewed before and after the transit by NPR (National Public Radio), so thanks to Scott for reaching out to help share this event with others. The best outreach I've managed yet in that sense!
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Colored:
B&W:
Time Lapse (last 30 minutes of transit):
Transit Party:
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Equipment:
C8 Edge HD + Aires Full Aperture D-ERF + Baader Red CCD-IR Block Filter
PST etalon + Coronado 10mm BF + ASI290MM (HA)
Baader 610nm + Baader 3.0 ND + ASi290MM (WL)
Orion ED80 + Baader Red CCD-IR Block Filter
PST etalon + Coronado 10mm BF + ASI174MM (HA)
Baader Blue CCD-IR Block Filter + Edmund Optics 430nm Gband Filter + Baader 3.0 ND Filter (WL)
C150HD 120mm F10 Refractor + Baader Red CCD-IR Block Filter
PST etalon + Coronado 10mm BF + ASI290MM (HA)
Very best,
