Transit of Mercury November 11, 2019

Transit of Mercury ~ November 11, 2019

I had decent weather for the transit of Mercury on November 11, 2019, so I was able to observe it from beginning to end. The skies were mostly clear but high clouds were intermittently present, and as the morning wore on, the sunshine warmed things up and created a cozy spot for this guy. These images aren't the best, but they're mine LOL! I tried to capture the event using my DSLR's through my 1970's vintage C8, so you can see the results in the first two images (Nikon cropped-sensor and then a Canon full-frame sensor camera). I tried this for hours, but then decided to try using my iPhone 6S afocally through my Celestron XLT 120 f/8.3 achromat at 50x. I was both pleased and embarrassed to discover that this worked better than using the C8/DSLR combination. The weird variations in the smartphone shots are because I was just holding the phone with my hand; first thing on my Christmas wish list is an afocal iPhone bracket!

The last image is one I wish I could have taken, with that nice clean, crisp black dot of Mercury against the face of the Sun. Unfortunately, it is my genuine Sun image, but a black dot drawn in PowerPoint LOL. How do the pros do that?

Transit of Mercury ~ May 9, 2016

A little bonus is my lone image of the May 9, 2016 Mercury transit, which I observed in Dahlgren, Virginia at work. I invited some of my colleagues out to the parking lot in mid-morning to see Mercury crossing the Sun in my Celestron 8, but the view was intermittent owing to clouds. Fortunately, my friend Brenda had a smartphone, which I used to get this afocal shot:

Obviously, my technique was not very good then; it was the first time I tried aiming a smartphone into the eyepiece, but it did make me determined to be better prepared for the November 2019 transit!

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