Author Topic: Passage of Mercury in front of the Sun May 09, 2016  (Read 14723 times)

simato73

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Re: Passage of Mercury in front of the Sun May 09, 2016
« Reply #30 on: May 02, 2016, 21:13:10 »
Did you set it to M?

Doh!
You are absolutely right, I missed this "tiny" detail.
Now I think it should work - or at least it should let me try what I want, success is not guaranteed at all.
Given this I might do the experiment, a cheap adapter only costs £10.
Simone Tomasi

Øivind Tøien

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Re: Passage of Mercury in front of the Sun May 09, 2016
« Reply #31 on: May 02, 2016, 21:17:26 »
I just made the same test that Øivind made.
An AW1 without lens on refuses to take pictures: "Check lens. Pictures can only be taken when a lens is attached".
Since the only way that the camera knows if a lens is attached is by having its contacts find something attached to them (no mechanical linkage that I can see) any adapter without electronics will be utterly useless on the AW1.  :(
Unless Bjørn says otherwise...

Yes, my test with the AW1 was also empirical, no way to release the shutter unless it sees a lens or an FT-1 attached, but oops, just checked in full manual mode, and yes, the shutter can be released then. Do keep in mind though that the FT-1 is not only for AFS lenses. It works just as well with full manual lenses. Even if they are not chipped, the AW-1 will allow metering in stop down A-mode, opposed to Nikon's consumer DSLRs. (The only limitation is that one cannot do long exposures beyond about 1 second, regardless of whether a manual or an AFS lens is attached, and if an AFS lens is attached, only center AF point is supported.) I regard the FT-1 as an accessory that greatly expands the usefulness of the AW1.
Øivind Tøien

simsurace

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Re: Passage of Mercury in front of the Sun May 09, 2016
« Reply #32 on: May 02, 2016, 22:16:12 »
Happy that the AW1 now works for you in M mode.
The 1s long exposure limit is so strange and a shame.

The Nikon 1 is the odd lens cam, for instance with the recently purchased Rayxar 65/0.75. At the bottom the variable-length adapter I made.


Simone Carlo Surace
suracephoto.com

Øivind Tøien

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Re: Passage of Mercury in front of the Sun May 09, 2016
« Reply #33 on: May 09, 2016, 06:45:23 »

It should be on in about 6 hours. Weather forecast here in interior Alaska does not look too good for the morning, but I have on many occasions experienced that it pays to never give up.
Øivind Tøien

Bjørn Rørslett

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Re: Passage of Mercury in front of the Sun May 09, 2016
« Reply #34 on: May 09, 2016, 17:33:08 »
A lot of Mercury shooting going on here in Killin. Weather was almost perfect, only complaints were we got sunburned and temperature too high :) ...


Akira

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Re: Passage of Mercury in front of the Sun May 09, 2016
« Reply #35 on: May 09, 2016, 18:31:46 »
Bjørn, is this the original image before cropped and inverted?

I don't know if I'm seeing the corona, but it is beautiful.
"The eye is blind if the mind is absent." - Confucius

"Limitation is inspiration." - Akira

Jan-Petter Midtgård

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Re: Passage of Mercury in front of the Sun May 09, 2016
« Reply #36 on: May 10, 2016, 10:37:35 »
The Mercury transit as seen from outside my house in Norway.

Nikon D810, Sigma 150-600 S and Baader Astrosolar filter.

Øivind Tøien

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Re: Passage of Mercury in front of the Sun May 09, 2016
« Reply #37 on: May 10, 2016, 12:46:37 »

Nice images here and in the Scotland thread! I was up before 5 AM hoping to image the sun above the large satellite dish at the university (UAF), but thick dark clouds were located in the north-east where the sun should be rising. Up again at 8 am, but still cloudy if a little better -may be there was hope.... At 9 am I could finally see sharper distinction between light and shade although still mostly cloudy. A quick inspection in the binoculars and I could see Mercury and the sun outlined sharply! Never give up hope!

Here are the first results. I got down the road to a place with a free view and set up my tracker and lens. the very first frame in false colors (using AW-1 for all images), still with clouds drifting in front of the sun:




It soon became even less cloudy and the sun was warming quite well.




I was able to follow it all the way until 10:43 am when it disappeared from the solar disk. (After these colorful frames I had to add some color to the Astrosolar film rendition):










The setup near the start; the tracker provided very comfortable framing of the sun in spite of not having a dedicated solar rate. I only had to adjust framing a few times. (However when reading the Scotland tread I realized that one could miss out on some creative possibilities when using a tracker, but of course the tracking can be shut off).  Somehow the light clouds stayed right where the sun was, but luckily they were transparent enough. One hour after it was over it had gotten more cloudy again, and I could barely make out the outline of the sun in the my Astrosolar film protected binoculars.

Øivind Tøien

Akira

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Re: Passage of Mercury in front of the Sun May 09, 2016
« Reply #38 on: May 10, 2016, 13:11:30 »
Congrats, guys!

The Mercury dot is much much smaller than that of Venus, but surely I'm seeing yet another once-in-a-lifetime pageant of the universe.  Thanks for sharing!
"The eye is blind if the mind is absent." - Confucius

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Jørgen Ramskov

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Re: Passage of Mercury in front of the Sun May 09, 2016
« Reply #39 on: May 10, 2016, 13:40:06 »
Very nice shots!
Jørgen Ramskov