OJBs Web Site: Observations

Note: You are currently viewing my old web site. There is a new version with most of this content at OJB.NZ.
The new site is being updated, uses modern techniques, has higher quality media, and has a mobile-friendly version.
This old site will stay on-line for a while, but maybe not indefinitely. Please update your bookmarks. Thanks.

(Up to OJB's 2006-11-09 Observation Page)

Observation: More Details on Transit of Mercury 2006

Title:	Observations and photos of the transit of Mercury
Date:	2006-11-09 NZDST
Time:	08.15 NZDST
Location:	St Clair, Dunedin
Equipment:	Celestron C8, Hydrogen Alpha scope, 8x20 binoculars, Canon digital camera

Other Photos

I took several other photos during the transit, mainly with my 75-300 mm telephoto lens (effective length on the digital camera 400 mm) which produced seom reasonable results.

The photo on the left shows the transit starting, as Mercury just begins to be visible on the right of the image, taking a small "bite" out of the Sun. On the right is a close up of the sunspot. The umbra and penumbra are clearly visible in this image which was taken using an afocal method. The camera with a 35 mm lens was focussed to infinity, and used to photograph the image through the eyepiece. Its hard to get everything lined up and focussed properly using this method, buts its a good way to get high magnification.