Mercury Transit Across the Sun
November 8, 2006
Tucson, AZ
Tele Vue 76 with Canon 30D at Prime Focus
Here is a Flash movie representing 15 images taken roughly 15 minutes apart during the first 4 hours of the transit. The planet starts out on the lower left hand edge of the Sun at about the 8:30 o'clock position. Sunspot 0923 is the larger dark spot near the 9:30 o'clock position and Sunspots 0921 & 0922 are at 4 o'clock.
Camera settings for the images: 1/800s at ISO 100, with spot metering. The Tele Vue 76 has a focal length of 480mm and an aperture of 76mm (f/6.3). The images are cropped to about 10% of the original frame.
You can click your browser's refresh button to re-start the movie.
Click on this link for a hydrogen-alpha (0.7Å) image of the transit.
And through the wonders of Photoshop, here's a composite of all 15 images of the planet Mercury against the Sun- - almost as if I had taken multiple exposures.
Special thanks to Dean at Starizona for quickly making an impromptu t-ring adaptor for the Canon 30D that allowed me to attach the camera to the telescope to take these shots.
