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The Transit Of Mercury 11/8/2006This year marks the last transit of Mercury until 2016. It was a challenge to image it at SSC's observatory. During the transit I attempted to simultaneously image the whole disk in White Light and H-Alpha. Despite some technical glitches associated with overloading my processor, I managed to acheive pretty good coverage of the transit until a freak weather condition triggered a fog bank to roll in off Pacific 3.5 hours into the work. Above is a composite of 143 frames in white light of the transit, covering the time up to the disappearance of the Sun. Instrumentation The Hydrogen Alpha images were made with a Coronado PST. Both scopes were piggy-backed atop a Meade 12" RCX400 in the dome. Above is a view of mid transit taken through a narrow band Hydrogen-Alpha with a Coronado Instruments PST.
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