Mercury passage in front of the sun November 11, 2019

[Øivind Tøien]

This is just a reminder that the Mercury transit in front of the sun November 11 will, weather permitting, be visible from Europe and most of North America (only the first part form Europe, last part from the US West coast. So it is time to bring out your solar safety filters for this event.  The transit begins at 12:35 UT (7:35 am EST) and lasts for almost six hours. Here are more details: http://eclipsewise.com/oh/tm2019.html. After this there will not be another Mercury passage before Nov 13, 2032.

Sadly, sunrise in Fairbanks is supposed to occur 6 minutes after the planet escapes from the sun disc, and in addition weather forecast does not look favorable, so I will likely miss it  . Depending on elevation of the horizon, there is however uncertainty of the the predicted sunrise time, so I will likely try anyway if there is any hope. Clouds can come and go pretty quickly these days.

Mercury will appear about 20% smaller than the 2016 passage. As an inspiration and reminder about the size, here is an image I posted before from the May 2016 passage (it might be the only one I get to post in this thread...) :


Nikon 1 AW1 with 300mm PF + TC14E @ f/8 and 1/500 s. Baader Astrosolar safety film based filter on the front of the lens.
Do not try this without a solar safety filter!. Warm color balance introduced in post.


Added for reference: Link to 2016 thread https://nikongear.net/revival/index.php?topic=3435.msg52030#msg52030

Also some from that event were posted in the Scotland thread: https://nikongear.net/revival/index.php?topic=3494.100 (well down the page)

[Akira]

I never realized that the Mercury in transit would happen that often.   This time, I wasn't able to see it from Tokyo anyway, though.

The capture is wonderful.  Thank you for sharing!

[Øivind Tøien]

Thanks for your comment Akira. It got too cloudy here, so no luck here either as suspected. Hope someone else here had better conditions.

A link to NASA's page with time lapses from today's transit in a number of different wavelengths:
https://mercurytransit.gsfc.nasa.gov/2019/

[Akira]

Øivind, thank you for the link.  This is intriguing!

If I understand correctly, the numbers after "AIA" (Atmospheric Imaging Assembly) represent the wavelengths at which the images were captured.

By the way, your combo for capturing the transit in 2016 was the same one that I used to capture the Venus in Transit in terms of the focal length.  I used an old Ai300/4.5, a 1.4x teleconverter on Nikon 1 J1.

[Jakov Minić]

Øivind, you made my day with the image and the link!
You brought back great 2016 memories when NG was shooting Mercury in Scotland.

[Jakov Minić]

Øivind, I cannot stop watching at these transits now with Birna and Erik.
I wonder what equipment looks like. What were they using and all these filters. My brain is in pain

[Øivind Tøien]

Thanks for the comments Akira and Jacov. Very narrowband adjustable filters are used for some of those images.

Here is a link to the NASA solar dynamics observatory (SDO): https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/ No problems with earth's atmosphere disturbing the images.

I added a link in my original post to the memorable Scotland thread at the first page with the Mercury transit.
(It must be one of the best and most diverse travel threads here!)

[golunvolo]

Wonderful super-scale.
  This image is mesmerizing and so poetic.

[Øivind Tøien]

Thanks for the enthusiastic comment, Paco.

Hope some forum members had luck with today's Mercury transit and will post new transit images here.

[beryllium10]

Øivind, Sorry to hear that you were disappointed.  Same for me.  I headed over to eastern Washington, where Mercury should have been close to mid-transit at sunrise (at 7 am local time).  Sunday night was spectacularly clear (and cold), so I was hopeful.  Unfortunately Monday dawned hazy, and got worse.  I took a few photos of the solar disk banded by cloud, which looked like they might have some potential.  However, the top and bottom of the sun's disk are badly blurred (left and right sides are sharp) and Mercury appears as a small vertical blur.  I assume that sunrise induced strong updrafts in the damp morning air, resulting in really unstable air and bad "seeing".  The same effect - blurred horizontals despite reasonably sharp, well-focused verticals - shows up in the couple of landscape photos I took afterwards.  Let's hope for better luck in 2032.
Cheers,  John

[Øivind Tøien]

John, sorry to hear you did not have more luck with it. Yes, early morning can be a problem with respect to seeing, particularly aiming close to the horizon.

Here is an impressive video from the SDO, not troubled by these effects:
https://vimeo.com/372671661

Unfortunately the 2032 Mercury transit will not be visible from the US.

I feel lucky I have been able to photograph both a Venus transit and a Mercury transit before, although the former just barely as solar safety filters were sold out everywhere. I saved the 2012 mid Venus transit by borrowing a solar filter from a colleague who happened to have set up at campus. Entry and exit were captured though a music CD as solar filter with an album appropriately named "Colors"! Here Venus mid transit in false color IR:

[Akira]

Unfortunately the 2032 Mercury transit will not be visible from the US.

I feel lucky I have been able to photograph both a Venus transit and a Mercury transit before, although the former just barely as solar safety filters were sold out everywhere. I saved the 2012 mid Venus transit by borrowing a solar filter from a colleague who happened to have set up at campus. Entry and exit were captured though a music CD as solar filter with an album appropriately named "Colors"! Here Venus mid transit in false color IR:

I wonder if the "Colors" CD is the one by Eberhard Weber?

By the way, I was lucky enough to capture the Venus in transit with the above mentioned setup in 2011 (I guess?).  It had been cloudy until the very last 30 minutes of the transit when part of the clouds went away from the area around the sun!

I used a Kenko Pro ND100000 square glass filter which was sold for the half of its original price as outlet after the much popular total solar eclipse earlier the same year.

Here is an image from the sequence capturing the "black drop".

[Birna Rørslett]

2012

[Akira]

2012

Hmmm...then my exif should be screwed up! 

[Øivind Tøien]

I wonder if the "Colors" CD is the one by Eberhard Weber?
...

I actually misspelled it, it was "Colours" by Norwegian artist Bendik Hofset.

Nice Venus capture.

Here is what the 2012 Venus entry point looked like though the "Colours" CD (hole in the middle covered, mounted on my 500mm Tokina mirror lens) :