
On November the 8th a rare transit of Mercury occurred, a day time event which was based at Smiths Cove on the Iron shore. Visibly was very good with only some partial cloud cover. Both Mike and I bought telescopes with suitable solar filters – Mike Whiteman also bought his small Coronado PST with H Alpha (Hydrogen) filter. A toy worthy of any on an Astronomers Santa list! The scope showed a large prominence which was not visible in the other scopes. Mercury was in fact a very small object dwarfed by Sunspots.
Here is a photo I took on the day, very poor quality yet quite remarkable what a simple digital camera can do – taken straight through the eyepiece. There is a sunspot visible upper right in the picture. Mercury is hard to find! Can you see it?
Chris
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