Below is a composite inage of

Forums Mercury Transit of Mercury Below is a composite inage of

#577371
David Basey
Participant

Below is a composite inage of the transit – with a twist.

The twist is that the images were taken with a 80mm refractor on an alt-az mount. Therefore the line of the “Mercurys” follows what an earth bound observer watching the transit saw as Mercury passed in front of the sun with the Earth rotating on it’s axis. The idea for this came from the display in Xavier Joubier’s page that Nick James highlighted in the first post.

The composite runs from 11:15-16:45 in 15m intervals until clouds finally intruded.

I am old enough to remember the last transit of Mercury that occured on May 9th – 1970. It was pretty clear then too. Best of all it was a Saturday and I did not have to go to school! The next May 9th transit visible from the UK is not until 2095. I doubt I’ll make it!