Mercury Transit from Belper.

[BAZ]

I had booked the day off in hope that I might be able to see this event from Britain without the cloud ruining the job as usually happens.

I got to Belper about 10.30 and started to set up two scopes. My Meade AR127, a 5" achromatic refractor which sat on it's usual EQ5 pro. I pointed this somewhere near North and hoped it would be somewhere near. 

I then set up the Vixen VMC95L, a small Schmidt Cassagrain, which is unusual in that it doesn't have a corrector plate at the front, but a small one that sits in front of the secondary mirror. I set this up on a ratty and battered EQ3 manually driven mount which came with the AR127 originally. I suspect it had a better mount than this, but I wasn't getting that one.

I put a Baader Zoom with a 2" Neodymium filter in the 5" and a 17mm Vixen LVW eyepiece with a UHC and a yellow filter in the Vixen. So with about half an hour before first contact I was ready and the weather was fairly good. 

I could see that there was a bank of cloud way off to the south, wispy high cloud above me and clear blue sky to the north. I think that Belper was on the edge of the cloud that ruined the event for people further south.

Andy Tuckwood turned up in good time and set up his 10" Dob with a solar filter fitted to the front end.

 

First contact occurred bang on time, well it would have done had my watch been accurate. A small black semi circle very slowly edged it's way onto the disc of the sun and in no time was there on it's own with a clear gap appearing from the limb of the sun.

There was a nice group of sun spots on the disc of the sun with a nice lacy penumbra surrounding it. Various smaller spots were peppered around this.

 

Daz turned up about 13.30 and set up his 8" Dob and the PST, very kindly loaned from Steve Ibbo. 

 

Over the period of the afternoon  DaveJW, Sheila and the birthday boy himself, Mr Rusty Strings (John) put in a welcome appearance. Polygon Pi (Andy) also ditched work to worship the sun. 

We spent the rest of the day watching the sun and Mercury, which bizarrely seemed to have stopped moving as it got further across the surface of the sun, maybe because there was no nearby visual reference as there was with the limb to start with.

This was interspersed with bird watching and scanning the horizon to see our local landmarks. The birds were a vocal Skylark, a pair of Swallows, a few House Martins, a Pied Wagtail and a Curlew which flew overhead and had a beak out of proportion to it's body.

 

As the afternoon went on the cloud slowly started to increase, the bank of cloud in the south crept ever closer and the blue clear sky to the north began to disappear. We called it a day at around half five and slowly wrapped things up.

It is the first time I have had an observing session in a tee shirt and wearing Crocs, maybe I shouldn't have admitted that bit, but they are comfortable.

 

Here's some pictures, I haven't sorted them out, just stuck them all in this folder. They are back to front in order as well, with the last pic being the first one taken.

 

http://s1230.photobucket.com/user/BBQBAZ/library/Mercury%20Transit%202016/Mercury%20Transit%202016001?sort=3&page=1

 

I hope you all managed to get a look at his unique event, the next one is May the 7th 2049. If I am around, I'll be watching that from the nursing home.

Edited May 9, 2016 by BAZ

[Daz Type-R]

Nice write up Martyn and some cracking pictures.

 

It was a very enjoyable Monday afternoon out.

[Guest]

I didn't book the day off and I planned some sneaky shots during the afternoon. As it was, I had 100% cloud cover all day. As the next May transit isn't until 2049, I'll be 6ft under by then.

 

I was hoping some of you further north would have seen it and I'm glad somebody did.

[Smithysteve]

Great report and pics Martyn, Nowt wrong with crocs - it does make a change to be observing during the day, when it's warm - it was blowing a snow blizzard last week!

well it's been a great day!

thanks for sharing!

 

[+Bino-viewer]

Sorry i missed you all.

I got waylaid and didn't make it up there till 6, and the birds had flown..........

Really enjoyed the transit though ; Mercury put on a great show.

Another one off the bucket list !

[+Graham]

Sounds like you had a great time.

What I want to know is who turned up in the mini digger 

[Tweedledee]

Nice photos Martyn. 

 

Looks like a day at the beach in Spain 

 

Glad you all had a nice time.

[Stephen]

Nice report and photo's Martyn, We managed I hour 40 minis between the clouds at the start , New solar scope worked very well, Most people down my end of the woods did not see a thing, I was at Bexhill on Sea with the EAS club we had a bout a 110 people turn up to see the event, Some people thought that the Sun spots was Mercury

Edited May 10, 2016 by Stephen

[philjay]

Glad you had a good day, great report. Cloud gods smiled on most of us in the midlands for once, its about time. I managed about 3 hours of popping out evey so often and having a glegg it was fascinating stuff

[PolygonPi]

Good stuff. I've not looked at the sun through a scope for years so it was cool to see Mercury, a good bunch of sunspots and some prominences all at once. Well worth sneaking out of work for a few hours, and a pleasant surprise with the weather!