Observation by Chris Hooker: Mercury in infrared, June 11th

Uploaded by

Chris Hooker

Observer

Chris Hooker

Observed

2018 Jun 11 - 15:45

Uploaded

2018 Jun 16 - 17:59

Objects

Mercury

Equipment

254 mm F/6.3 Newtonian
TeleVue 3x Barlow
Baader IR-pass filter
ZWO ASI120MM-S camera

Exposure

1 msec

Location

Didcot, Oxfordshire

Target name

Mercury

Title

Mercury in infrared, June 11th

About this image

Mercury observed in the late afternoon. The jet stream was minimal, but local seeing conditions were very bad so that only a very small proportion of the captured frames could be used. However, there are a few bright spots visible in the final image which match those in the Messenger reference images.

Please see the safety note in my post from June 3rd regarding the precautions needed to make this observation.

Files associated with this observation

Mercury members 11 June.PNG (239.5 kB)

Like this image

Jeremy Shears, Bill Leatherbarrow, Chris Dole, Callum Potter, Martin Lewis, David Swan, Nick Hewitt, David Basey, Steve Knight, Andy Wilson, Peter Carson

Comments

Martin Lewis, 2018 Jun 19 - 12:03 UTC

Great image again Chris. Doesn't that elongation fall outside your 2.25 to 4.2deg safe range though?

Cheers

Martin

Chris Hooker, 2018 Jun 20 - 20:53 UTC

Hi Martin,

Actually, the point about the 4.2 degrees is that then the tip of the sunlight cone is hitting the rim of the tube right at the top, so the energy is pretty concentrated and I'm not happy about that. Once the elongation increases to more than around 6 degrees, the reflected sunlight never gets close to focus but is spread out over the inside of the tube. It still has the potential to induce tube currents, but for this observation I had a piece of old sheet wrapped around the tube (which is metal) and sprayed it with water from time to time to see if that would help by keeping it cool. It's hard to say whether it helped: more experiments are needed.

Cheers,

Chris

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