Mercury with surface features, 17th March

[andyc]

This has been on the bucket list for a while, and the seeing was good enough last Wednesday morning. I've never seen surface features on Mercury before, but several showed up here in my IR image (left), compared to a planetarium view (right). The dark-ringed, bright centred basin Tolstoy is near the limb, and bright areas, Nureyev (crater), Qi Baishi (basin rim) and Caloris Planitia are all discernible. Not sure when I'll be this lucky again!



https://photos.app.goo.gl/R1hE18kYjPy14yWu9

[Rainmaker]

That's excellent Andy :thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Tulloch]

Very impressive :)

[multiweb]

That's incredible. :eyepop: Details we see in there are sub arc seconds. :thumbsup: How high was it high in the sky?

[astronobob]

Top Class stuff,, Andy, extraordinary image, congratts !

[alan meehan]

wow

[MortonH]

Freak me sideways! :eyepop:

[Retrograde]

Amazing work! :eyepop:

[Atmos]

Only amateur image of Mercury in aware of, really pushing the boundaries there Andy!

[peter_4059]

Me too!

[andyc]

Thanks everyone! I've made an animated comparison map from the image, and compared my view to the Messenger map - the comparison is quite reasonably good even down to moderate scale (https://photos.app.goo.gl/wSKgU937PZ2yQoEY8)

Marc, it was 27deg high, right on sunrise.

[N1]

Andy, this is an astonishing feat.

[multiweb]

Awesome