Mercury Transit

[Kal]

1st post :D

Pretty shoddy picture but sneaking in with the first transit picture posting so I'm hoping you will excuse it! :P

Clouds in Sydney this morning but some blue sky offered hope so I set up my etx-90 and waited. Between frustrating breaks between the clouds that only seemed to last a few seconds, I got a clear break for about 20 mins so I snapped some images on my LPI before heading off to work. I think I had my gain/offset set too high (max on both) but I needed to snap very short exposures (between .004 and .008 /sec) because the sun was moving all about on my screen.

Stacked in registax, contrast adjust in microsoft image viewer :lol:

Not sure of why mercury looks like a 3/4 pie :shrug:

http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/1271/mercury2om2.png

[iceman]

Hi Kal

:welcome: to the forum!

Sorry to put a dampener on being the first, but the transit is actually on Thursday morning, not today.

You've got a nice picture of Sunspot group 921/922 though, well done!

[RB]

Kal the transit is on Thursday 9th Nov.
You've captured a very nice sunspot group.


Welcome to the forum btw.

:welcome:

[netwolf]

Welcome Kal ;), so after all that glad to see you finally saw sense and signed up. The transit is on Thursday morning. I hope you will convince our other friend to join up now.

Regards

[Kal]

lmao! No wonder why I couldn't get mercury to focus into a tight black circle!!! :lol:

*cough* was just doing a trial run for Thursday *cough* ;)

Maybe an admin can rename the topic to "sunspots" for me :whistle:

[[1ponders]]

How does "Sunspot Activity Mistaken for Merury Transit" sound :lol: :poke: ;)

:welcome: Kal, nice image to start with though. :thumbsup:

[RB]

:lol:

Kal just start a new thread on Thursday called -
"A perfectly round sunspot transits the sun in record time....."

:thumbsup:

[Kal]

Hahaha yes I will have to do that!

My story so far this morning: :D :eyepop: :doh: :screwy: :whistle:

[[1ponders]]

:lol:

[Lee]

:lol: Welcome Kal..... were you wondering why Mercury was breaking up into bits? :P It is a good pic!

[ving]

nice "trial run" kal :D

well if thats your standard you should be producing a decent shot come thursday! :)

[Suzy_A]

Hi Kal,

At least I knew something was wrong almost straight away!

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=14767

My photos of the sunspots aren't as good however!

Susan

[Kal]

Hi Susan,

With a guy at my work who is also into astronomy (the 'other friend' that Fahim mentions earlier in this thread) that makes 3 premature observers that I know of. Funny think was this other friend of mine kept calling my mobile saying "I can't see mercury?!" and I kept telling him to persist since I had already snapped my photos:rofl:

[netwolf]

Kal,
Well i have not finished my cell and it seems we are clouded in so no point now. I know i will kick myself tomorrow when the clouds part for the perfect view. I will be returning that Solar film to you guys unused. Possibly get some time early next year when i come back from holidays to make it.

Regards.