Observation by Chris Hooker: Crescent Mercury, 12th June 2022

Uploaded by

Chris Hooker

Observer

Chris Hooker

Observed

2022 Jun 12 - 07:00

Uploaded

2022 Jun 12 - 21:02

Objects

Mercury

Equipment
  • 254mm F/6.3 Newtonian
  • 5x IR Barlow lens
  • 710nm to 850nm bandpass filters
  • ZWO ASI174 mono camera
Exposure

0.4 msec @ F/31

Location

Didcot, Oxfordshire

Target name

Mercury

Title

Crescent Mercury, 12th June 2022

About this image

Very transparent skies allowed me to locate Mercury in the daytime sky by offsetting from the Sun, in spite of its magnitude being only 0.9. The seeing was poor due to a fairly strong jet-stream, and the relative faintness of the planet required longer than ideal exposures, so the image shows no detail but only the crescent phase. The mottled appearance is just noise. The WinJupos image shows that in fact the illuminated part of Mercury is relatively bland, with none of the brightest impact craters visible.

Mercury will become brighter and easier to image in the daytime during the rest of June and early July, so this will provide further opportunities if the weather permits.

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