Mercury transit

[Werisit]

I've been playing with some stills from the Mercury transit and thought you folks might like to have a go at this.

This is an experiment and might not work on here. This is a stereo pair from the transit images. Look at the gap between the images and gradually cross your eyes until you see a merged image in the middle with one left and one right in your peripheral. Keep your head level. Allow your eyes to settle on the central image for a few seconds. You can now look around the central image and see Mercury standing out from the sun and sun spots. (Hopefully) Good luck!

 

Sky-Watcher ST 102 at prime focus. Nikon D300 camera. EQ1 mount with simple RA drive. Processed in Paint Shop Pro.

[+Bino-viewer]

Yes Alan. It works a treat ! 

 

I believe this is the process called 'summation' ? where the human brain 

combines the 2 images and gives an 'enhanced' view.

Mercury does indeed seem to take on a 3D sort of effect, and the sunspots are more evident.

 

Have you tried observing wth a bino-viewer btw.......?

[Tweedledee]

I'm not managing to do this, and it is doing my head in trying, and I just keep seeing four suns  

 

I would really like to experience this effect, so is there an optimum distance to view it from a 15" laptop screen?

[Werisit]

1 hour ago, Tweedledee said:

I'm not managing to do this, and it is doing my head in trying, and I just keep seeing four suns  

 

I would really like to experience this effect, so is there an optimum distance to view it from a 15" laptop screen?

I wear glasses and best distance depends on which strength I'm wearing so from about 350mm to 700mm. I guess about 0.5m should be ok.  If you're getting 4 suns you are over-doing the crossing. Try to slowly increase the crossing and stop at 3 suns. It may help to hold a finger in front of the images and slowly bring it towards your eyes, keeping aware of the sun images behind and when you get a merged centre image take your finger away and allow your eyes to focus on the sun image. Also your eyes need to be level with the screen otherwise the centre image won't merge vertically. Good luck!

 

[Werisit]

Rob. I'm pleased you got it to work. I have looked through a bino-viewer but it was at a public event and it wasn't set up correctly for me. I imagine wide field objects like the double cluster would be an amazing sight. Do thing actually look 3d? 

[Tweedledee]

9 minutes ago, Werisit said:

I wear glasses and best distance depends on which strength I'm wearing so from about 350mm to 700mm. I guess about 0.5m should be ok.  If you're getting 4 suns you are over-doing the crossing. Try to slowly increase the crossing and stop at 3 suns. It may help to hold a finger in front of the images and slowly bring it towards your eyes, keeping aware of the sun images behind and when you get a merged centre image take your finger away and allow your eyes to focus on the sun image. Also your eyes need to be level with the screen otherwise the centre image won't merge vertically. Good luck!

 

Thanks Alan, I too wear glasses for anything closer than arms length. 

 

Struggled again tonight, but I've had a tiring day and will have another go when I'm fresh again tomorrow.