Mercury Transit
 

Here's a quick comparison shot of the transit of Mercury this morning (my time) on the right compared to the transit of Venus (left) a few years ago. Same 6-inch telescope, just holding a cell phone camera up to the eyepiece. The size difference of the two planets is pretty dramatic, though its enhanced some by the difference in distance. (My sons did the Venus one; wish I could figure out how they got such good focus on their image....)

Norm

Thank you for sharing this! These are quite nice! :tu:

Though everyone can google this, here a couple of [URL="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2016/05/09/photos-and-live-stream-mercurys-transit-across-the-sun/"]fast[/URL] [URL="http://bgr.com/2016/05/09/nasa-mercury-sun-transit-livestream-photos/"]links[/URL], too (perhaps for posterity when they will drop off google's top links). We had clouds all morning. :-(

From Irthlingborough.

[QUOTE=pinhodecarlos;433393]From Irthlingborough.[/QUOTE]

Nice!- several hours earlier than when I got up here. Looks like a much better system than a cell phone camera held up to the eyepiece.

Norm

The Transit is a Ford product. The Mercury badge is all but retired.

Thanks for the comparative pics -- must be an optical illusion (probably based on projected area biasing one's mental size-estimator), but Venus looks comparatively much larger than I expected based on its 2.5x larger diameter. Time to get my ruler out...

[QUOTE=ewmayer;433436]Thanks for the comparative pics -- must be an optical illusion (probably based on projected area biasing one's mental size-estimator), but Venus looks comparatively much larger than I expected based on its 2.5x larger diameter. Time to get my ruler out...[/QUOTE]

Yep- even realizing that Venus is 2.5 times larger than Mercury, and about twice as close during a transit, the difference in size between the two planets in these pictures was more than I expected.Time to calculate angular sizes.

[URL="http://ideas.4brad.com/i-was-investigated-feds-taking-picture-sun"]I was investigated by the feds for taking a picture of the sun[/URL]

[QUOTE=only_human;434434][URL="http://ideas.4brad.com/i-was-investigated-feds-taking-picture-sun"]I was investigated by the feds for taking a picture of the sun[/URL][/QUOTE]
Bwhaaa... me and all the office, rolling down on the floor literary, over this quote from the article: (related to targeting the sun with a terrorist attack)

[QUOTE]General conclusion, it’s too bright, so do it at night.[/QUOTE]

Brilliant! :rofl:
Thanks a billion for sharing it!