Mercury Transit

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Dave S
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Mercury Transit

Post by Dave S »

I changed weekend plans and accommodations and found someone to help care for a family member so that I could be home on Monday morning to try for a transit photo.

The alarm went off at 6am and I went to the window and saw thick fog. Felt torn by astroimaging drive and warm bed with hugs, back to bed for another hour. Got up again and couldn't see across the valley with the transit halfway through. Made coffee, breakfast, watched the news, it was still socked in. Decided to set up the solar telescope just in case I got lucky. Still cloudy with little of the transit remaining.
20191111_075130-640.jpg
20191111_075130-640.jpg (261.54 KiB) Viewed 1517 times
I pointed the scope at the brighter area in the clouds and went back inside. Looked online and saw that Mercury was almost to the limn. I took another look through the eyepiece and saw the clouds smoking by, then a glimpse of the solar disc, focused frantically and tried to tune the filter, more clouds, then another glimpse of the disc and I saw the dark speck of Mercury, raced inside and grabbed the camera, got another cloudy window to half-focus, another window to tune the filter, another window for a little more focus while adjusting the exposure up and down to see through the clouds. At 9:57am PST started recording short clips and at 10:00am I got one good enough to make an image.

Whew! Not as good as I was hoping for, but thankful to get a picture of this rare event.
MercuryTransiSun_100038.jpg
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Re: Mercury Transit

Post by MAURITS »

Nicely done Dave.


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Re: Mercury Transit

Post by Montana »

Well done!!! I love these stories more than the transit :) why does it take 20 hours longer to find on band and focus when time is ticking :)

That is a superb shot and great memento :bow :hamster:

Alexandra


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Re: Mercury Transit

Post by marktownley »

Lovely scope and transit image


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Re: Mercury Transit

Post by eroel »

Dave:
Well you got the transit all right and a beautiful instrument.
Regards,
Eric.


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Re: Mercury Transit

Post by DeepSolar64 »

Dave:
Nice pic and certainly an awesome scope!!

James


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Re: Mercury Transit

Post by Carbon60 »

I feel your frustration, just getting those tantalising little glimpses every so often to get things set up with precious time ticking by. The event waits for no one, ready or not.

Lovely image of the final stages. Nice scope too. :)

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Re: Mercury Transit

Post by ffellah »

Beautiful catch, Dave

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Re: Mercury Transit

Post by Starry Jack »

Love the shot, love the story.


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Re: Mercury Transit

Post by christian viladrich »

Well done !


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Re: Mercury Transit

Post by MapleRidge »

A challenging effort, but glad to see you managed to get a great image in the end!!!

Brian


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Re: Mercury Transit

Post by Dave S »

Thank you, everybody!


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