OBSERVATION OF THE MERCURY TRANSIT ON MONDAY NOVEMBER 11, 2019
November 12, 2019
The last planetary transit before 2032 occurred on November 11, 2019. It was observable from our campus from late afternoon to sunset, theoretically that is. We set up a telescope with a solar filter at the student center balcony, but the skies were completely overcast… until 10 minutes to sunset! Those patient people who waited for two hours and some lucky ones who happened to be there at the right time were able to observe Mercury as a tiny dot on the orange Sun as seen through our filter. You can see some photos from the event below (thanks to Yeliz Utku Konca). One of them is taken through the eyepiece of the telescope which shows the disk of the Sun over the trees in the horizon. You can see a small dark region near the center which may or may not be Mercury, the blur due to our unsteady hands makes it hard to say. However, the black spot of Mercury was clear and sharp when we looked through the eyepiece in person.
