We’ll I’m happy to say that the skies miraculously cleared and I was able to pull the scope out and get some shots of the November 8th solar transit by Mercury. The sun was perched right above my neighbors heat radiating rooftop so it could have been better, but I’m glad to have seen it. Mercury was one of the 3 remaining planets I’d yet to image in some form or fashion. In fact I’d only even laid eyes on it once… by accident. A few years back during an evening Mercury-Venus conjunction just after sunset.

Here are a few shots I took if the transit event.

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When I had the Canon EOS 300D at prime focus I took about 3 dozen shots at various settings hoping I get one at a decent exposure and focus. After viewing them it occurred to me I might make an animation from the shots. In this animation there is about a 15 minute gap where I was shooting through and eyepiece with an Olympus D460 and answering a phone call. If I’d realized I might make an animation I’d have taken more care to shoot images at regular intervals. All in all it came out OK.

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Due to my frantic work schedule these days I don’t now how much scope time I’m going to be getting this season. I’m typically rolling into the driveway between 1 and 3 AM, then it’s up a 6:30 AM to get the boy off to school. After 4 or 5 days in a row of this the only thing I really want to do on my off days is SLEEP.

At any rate, I was really pining for a nap and almost didn’t take the scope out for this. I’m most certainly glad I did.