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The May 7, 2003 transit of Mercury
After a number of rainy days, the sky finally
started to clear out over CBA Belgium Observatory in
the night of May 6 / 7, 2003. This was an excellent
timing, giving me the opportunity to observe two
entirely different celestial highlights. First of
all, it allowed me to participate in an
international observing campaign to study the rarely
outbursting cataclysmic variable OU Vir. Second, on the morning of
May 7th, the Sun's disk would show the tiny
silhouette of Mercury, on its way for a 5 hours transit
of the Sun.
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All
images were made with an Olympus C3030 Zoom
digital camera, attached to a 0.35-m f/6.3
telescope (effectively reduced to 0.08-m). The
image at left was obtained on May 7.372 UT,
the one at right - showing Mercury close to a
prominent sun spot - on May 7.374 UT.
(c) Tonny Vanmunster & Jean-Marie Biets |
I had invited my long-time friend Jean-Marie Biets
(an avid Belgian meteor enthusiast) to join me for
the observation of the Mercury transit. We started
our observing session around 7h UT, under good
skies. At that moment, the transit was already well
under way, and Mercury was easily visible as a dark
"hole" in the Sun's disk. We used the
35-cm f/6.3 telescope at CBA Belgium Observatory,
but reduced the aperture to 8-cm. A safe solar
filter (Baader Astrosolar) was used to protect our
eyes from the Sun's blinding intensity.
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Jean-Marie Biets next to the telescope that was
used to follow the transit |
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Image obtained
on May 7.436 UT, towards the end of the
transit. |
We attempted to make digital photographs of the
event, using an Olympus C-3030 Zoom 3.1 megapixel
camera, that was controlled via software using
Sergei Menchenin's Cam2Com
package (freeware). Since this was our very first
attempt to photograph the Sun with a digital camera,
it took us quite some time to find the right
combination of focus / zoom / aperture and other
settings. Below is a sample of the pictures we
obtained, giving an impression of the progress of
the transit. We continued to observe the event till
about 10h32m UT, when the planet finally left the
Sun.
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"Hole
in the sun rim" on May 7.437 UT |
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Last sight
on May 7.438 UT |
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Towards the end of the transit, my two sons
joined for a sight of the event (picture lower
row left).
Michiel observed the transit with a lot of
interest (upper row), but
it seems my youngest boy Niels
(lower row right) will have to wait
for the next transit, for a more comfortable
observing position ;-)
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Copyright © 2003 - Tonny Vanmunster.
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