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Mercury Transits the Sun

This May 7th 2003 the weather in Oslo was " superb " for the coming event. I had prepared myself thoroughly for a whole week and had decided to use the Meade 4" LX3 SC telescope ( f/11 ) with a Thousand Oakes visual filter. In order to use the light sensitive MX916 CCD camera, I had to install an extra dark green filter.

C - Counterbalance S - Solar filter F - Flip mirror unit G - Green filter W - Wedge H - Hand control Cl. Ols. - Tripod

Major events. All times are UT :


04h 35m : Telescope's RA-motor fails ( Approx. 35 min before 1. contact ).

Found that it had to be the power. Fortunately I had an extra 12V transformer. Changed and made the proper connections ( no time for soldering now ).




The Transit begins.

Just after 1. contact Image. 05h 11m 30s

2. contact Image. 05h 15m 40s

Short animation of Mercury's transit ( 07h 01m 20s - 07h 08m 41s ).

3. contact Image. 10h 28m 00s

Close to 4. contact Image. 10h 31m 09s

Please wait for the animation to load ( 1 Mb ). I took 1600 images, covering the whole transit ( but that is not loading now ).

The random motion in the picture is caused by the turbulence in the earth's atmosphere.

Animation ends with a " still-picture ", 05h 44m 43s UT.






Conclusion :

Next year it is Venus transit, and the most important lesson I learned was that on "once in a lifetime astronomical events", always have a well tested backup telescope and camera ready ( use both ).


ITA Nyheter

Mercury transit.( At the sun's limb. ) Date : 9.May 1970 Universal Time : 11.10 Telescope : 0.06m f/20 and projection. Exposure time and film : Kodak 125 ASA Digitized by Kodak.

Mercury.

Date : 29. August 1998 Video exp. : 1/60 sec. 1.52 m f/16 Cassegrain at Mount Wilson

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