Size of Sun as seen from Mercury |
Size of Sun as seen from Mercury |
Jun 20 2011, 03:02 PM
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#16
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Member Group: Members Posts: 656 Joined: 20-April 05 From: League City, Texas Member No.: 285 |
I got to wondering about this, considered making my own graphic, then googled and came up with the following, from Burton Mackenzie's blog:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_tlXkPX0vMqk/SaTW...ize_diagram.png So apparently the Sun appears about 3 times as large in Mercury's sky as it does on Earth. I was expecting something much more dramatic. |
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May 16 2018, 08:26 PM
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#17
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Director of Galilean Photography Group: Members Posts: 896 Joined: 15-July 04 From: Austin, TX Member No.: 93 |
Are there any good videos of the sun throughout a Mercurian day? I found this video, but it doesn't show how the sun's location varies, or what a specific observer on a specific spot would see. I assume there are solar system simulators that would allow one to stand on spots on Mercury and watch the sun progress?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gubNWJ5RlP4 I assume at one of the sub-solar points you would see the Sun approach overhead, slow down, get larger, pause for a bit, then speed up and get smaller. But what would a person not at one of those points see? If you were 90* away, the sun would be largest at sunrise, shrink, then get larger again at sunset? Thanks everyone! -------------------- Space Enthusiast Richard Hendricks
-- "The engineers, as usual, made a tremendous fuss. Again as usual, they did the job in half the time they had dismissed as being absolutely impossible." --Rescue Party, Arthur C Clarke Mother Nature is the final inspector of all quality. |
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May 17 2018, 06:48 AM
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#18
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Newbie Group: Members Posts: 5 Joined: 20-November 17 From: Brazil Member No.: 8292 |
Stellarium as well is pretty good. F6 to change location, switch planet to Mercury, pick somewhere on the map and speed up time as you wish. You can zoom into the Sun and watch it change size as time progresses, change your location 90° to the east/west and do the same again. Spoiler alert: your assumption is correct
Curiously, just over a year ago I made a gif/short video using Stellarium (Gfycat link) of what a solar day on Mercury would look like, but the change in apparent size of the Sun isn't really noticeable - it was more aimed at visualising the Sun's movement through the sky. The labels are all in Portuguese, L is east and O is west. -------------------- |
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