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The Transit Of Mercury 11/8/2006

This 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 transit was imaged using two Meade DSI Pro II imagers. The White light system used a Thousand Oaks full aperture filter on a Meade 80mm APO operating at f4.0.

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.

Animations

White Light Raw Animation

White Light Image Sharpend

Hydrogen-Alpha Transit View

 

SSC Observatories Offices:
1303 S. Ola Vista
San Clemente, CA 92682

Email: observatory <at> ssccorp.com


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