Posted on 05/09/2016 6:54:12 AM PDT by Western Phil
If you enjoy watching paint dry, you may enjoy the Transit of Mercury taking place right now. It is cloudy here, so we can't see it directly.
Be careful with your eyes though!
It’s too small to be seen using a pinhole device.
wheres here?
Pictures or it didn’t happen...
I’ve been hearing about this situation...any information on what it’s about?
It’s a large shipment of mercury containing compact florescent light bulbs.
When I go on this site it’s just a black square.?
Mercury in now between the earth and the sun. It is so far away and the sun is so much larger so that Mercury appears as a round black dot in the face of the sun. It is sort of like an annular eclipse.
I thought it seemed a little dark today.
Watching paint dry is pretty neat.
Sixty Symbols Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW5wB8rJ8Zc
Its not much different if you can get it to work. Its a white square with a black dot.
Basically, it means that Mercury is passing directly between the sun and the earth, so if one can safely look at the sun’s disk, one can see a tiny black dot (Mercury) passing across the sun. Transits of Mercury are rare, a dozen or so per century. Transits of Venus are much rarer, twice every 120 years or so. If you missed the last one you’ll have to wait another 100 years for the next one.
~Sting
It’s so cloudy here...so I guess I’ll have to rely on photos when they come out...amazing things are happening...
And now everyone who dropped $400+ on a solar telescope finally feels validated ;)
(Jealous? Me? Nah, why would you think that?)
Lol.
I did go out and think I could look at the sun itself and see Mercury just fleetingly.
Well, the sun is a fiery ball and is so bright I could not see anything for a few minutes..
Pretty dumb of me.
I remember getting up early for the one in May 1970 and dragging my regular telescope to a large open field to watch — I just projected the image from the eyepiece onto a a small but sturdy piece of white poster board, no special telescope required.
Meanwhile, astronomers on Mercury are watching their planet’s shadow as it races across the surface of the earth (whatever they call the third planet from the sun). Of course only visible with a telescope from Mercury.
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