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Viewing Mercury |
 Feb 23 2006, 11:40 PM
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#1
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 Member  Group: Members Posts: 809 Joined: 11-March 04 Member No.: 56  |
I just wanted to note that Mercury is beautifully visible a little after sunset now, and for a few more days. I have never actually seen Mercury before, with the naked eye or otherwise. In travelling through the atmosphere the light has picked up a beautiful, delicate rose-pink tinge.
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Feb 23 2006, 11:52 PM
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 Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2530 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 321 |
QUOTE (David @ Feb 23 2006, 03:40 PM)  I just wanted to note that Mercury is beautifully visible a little after sunset now, and for a few more days. I have never actually seen Mercury before, with the naked eye or otherwise. In travelling through the atmosphere the light has picked up a beautiful, delicate rose-pink tinge. I've seen Mercury hundreds of times, but this is the first time I have photographed it (having just begun my astrophotography career in January!). Interestingly, it appears aligned with the street I live on, and is easily visible against the city lights of San Francisco. It's funny to contemplate photographing a sky object while pointing a telescope right past streetlights and waiting for buses to get out of the line of sight. But then, Mercury is lit at 6x the sunlight levels of the Sahara, and its tiny gibbous face easily outshines anything my urban street can offer. Featureless in my 3" scope to be sure, but I magnified the pixels from its disk to produce an assessment of its color and produced something suitably lunar. I'm happy with that. |
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Feb 24 2006, 10:17 PM
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#3
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 Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2454 Joined: 8-July 05 From: NGC 5907 Member No.: 430 |
Space Weather News for Feb. 24, 2006
http://spaceweather.com MERCURY AT ITS BEST: Tonight is the best night of the year to see Mercury. Step outside at sunset and look west. Mercury is the bright pink "star" shining through the glow of the setting sun. (If you miss the planet tonight, try again tomorrow. Mercury will remain visible at sunset all weekend long.) -------------------- "After having some business dealings with men, I am occasionally chagrined,
and feel as if I had done some wrong, and it is hard to forget the ugly circumstance. I see that such intercourse long continued would make one thoroughly prosaic, hard, and coarse. But the longest intercourse with Nature, though in her rudest moods, does not thus harden and make coarse. A hard, sensible man whom we liken to a rock is indeed much harder than a rock. From hard, coarse, insensible men with whom I have no sympathy, I go to commune with the rocks, whose hearts are comparatively soft." - Henry David Thoreau, November 15, 1853 |
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Apr 1 2006, 11:37 AM
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#4
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 Member Group: Members Posts: 159 Joined: 4-March 06 Member No.: 694 |
QUOTE (ljk4-1 @ Feb 25 2006, 07:47 AM) Space Weather News for Feb. 24, 2006 http://spaceweather.com MERCURY AT ITS BEST: Tonight is the best night of the year to see Mercury. Step outside at sunset and look west. Mercury is the bright pink "star" shining through the glow of the setting sun. (If you miss the planet tonight, try again tomorrow. Mercury will remain visible at sunset all weekend long.) If you're lucky enough, Mercury will transit the sun on November 8-9, 2006. It's path across the sun is very similar to the 1882 transit of Venus, but with a much smalled disk. Start 19:14 UT (Nov. 8 2006) and end 00:15 (Nov. 9 2006). The West Coast of the US will get the full transit, which will be a partial consolation for getting none of the 2004 transit of Venus. -------------------- I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before thee life and death, the blessing and the curse; therefore choose life, that thou mayest live, thou and thy seed.
- Opening line from episode 13 of "Cosmos" |
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Apr 1 2006, 01:10 PM
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 Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2488 Joined: 17-April 05 From: Glasgow, Scotland, UK Member No.: 239 |
QUOTE (angel1801 @ Apr 1 2006, 12:37 PM) If you're lucky enough, Mercury will transit the sun on November 8-9, 2006. It's path across the sun is very similar to the 1882 transit of Venus, but with a much smalled disk. Start 19:14 UT (Nov. 8 2006) and end 00:15 (Nov. 9 2006). The West Coast of the US will get the full transit, which will be a partial consolation for getting none of the 2004 transit of Venus. Here's a photo I took of the 2004 Venus transit for comparison! Bob Shaw
Attached thumbnail(s)
-------------------- Remember: Time Flies like the wind - but Fruit Flies like bananas!
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