7 ms·

The transit of Mercury starts at 7:35 am ET and will last for 5.5 hours

170 points by bharatsb 7y ago

starpilot 7y ago
To get you warmed up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Amh9uQNwWyA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Amh9uQNwWyA
ColinWright 7y ago
12:35Z : Starts 15:20Z : Mid-point 18:04Z : Ends Gutted to be missing this ... it's been in my diary for years.
rococode 7y ago
Here's a list of past/future times for this transit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_of_Mercury#Past_and_future_transits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_of_Mercury#Past_and_fu... It looks like the next one visible from anywhere (but presumably not in the US) will be in 2032
throwaway35784 7y ago
Will a welding mask work?
- tinix 7y ago
  you need a high shade, at least 14. just get a stack of neutral density filters, and some IR/UV block filters, and use a camera... you'll need magnification anyway.
  - newnewpdro 7y ago
    You're reminding me of reports that people had returned very expensive rented telephoto lenses destroyed by sunlight after the last total lunar eclipse.
    - tinix 7y ago
      Those people suck, frankly. I own very expensive lenses, and equipment. I speak from experience. I was a professional photographer many years ago, though it's only a hobby these days. I filmed the crescendo of the 2017 solar eclipse and took photos throughout with a stack of IR/UV/ND filters: https://photos.app.goo.gl/CV9Ju3TkMtJKNL566 https://photos.app.goo.gl/CV9Ju3TkMtJKNL566 I had to remove most of the ND filters during totality because it was simply blocking too much light, so much so that clouds and stars are visible in some photos. I had >99% IR/UV cut and over 26 stops of wide-band light reduction in front of my lens. My equipment is fine, I assure you. Due diligence isn't hard; I looked up the spec sheets for every filter I purchased, and did the actual math, so much so that I had to remove a filter or two during totality to get the exposure that I wanted, because I was overly conservative to protect my equipment. But... yeah... though there were many people who destroyed equipment during the 2017 eclipse, that doesn't mean it can't be done safely and properly.
- ranger207 7y ago
  That's what I used for the transit of Venus, along with some binoculars. Make sure the glass is dark enough of course.
  - chrisshroba 7y ago
    Please note that the welding mask needs to be put between the sun and the binoculars, not between the binoculars and the eyes. Otherwise, so much light from the sun will be focused by the binoculars that the welding mask will not be nearly enough to counteract it, and severe eye damage is pretty much a certainty. Also, note that many astronomers will say that only filters that are rated for solar use should be used, which a welding mask is not. So do this at your own risk.
    - lightedman 7y ago
      Welding masks may not be rated for solar, but given that they block out the insane amount of UVA-UVB generated by welding, and our atmosphere totally kills UVC, you're good to go as long as you aren't relying upon the auto-darkening ones.
- sytelus 7y ago
  Just look for any local astronomy groups doing public viewing event. Even the medium-size cities have such gatherings.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- dreamcompiler 7y ago
  If it's around #15 or greater, but unlike the eclipse you won't be able to see anything interesting with just the welding mask. Mercury is too small. You need magnification, but if you use binoculars and you put the welding mask between the binocs and your eyes you will permanently damage your eyes and the binocs. Make a pinhole in a playing card and put a large piece of white cardboard a meter behind it. This will work well. It will be dim so you might need to arrange a large sheet of poster board around the playing card for shade.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago
  https://eclipse.aas.org/eye-safety/iso-certification https://eclipse.aas.org/eye-safety/iso-certification says "The only ones that are safe for direct viewing of the Sun with your eyes are those of Shade 12 or higher." (which are rare because they're too dark for most welding) Other sources said 13 was the minimum. You're probably best off with a 13 or 14. I found 13 too bright.
njarboe 7y ago
Weird how the top of this page says the transit is on November 11th, but the side bar and main description section have it as November 12th. From the site rococode linked to, it is November 11, but it is a bit strange for NASA to have this wrong and inconsistent on its site. I hope to get a look tomorrow if the sky is clear.
faggotVote 7y ago
Hey, let's just downvote faggots because faggots.
nexuist 7y ago
Interesting to think about where we'll be when this happens again in 2049. It's a difference of only 30 years. 30 years ago was 1989. Yet life today compared to then is simply alien - technology has impacted the way everyone and every thing exists. The first self-powered flight was in 1903. Man landed on the Moon just 66 years later. In one lifetime you went from being perpetually constrained to the surface to literally flying above the sky, transcending all known heights, and you wouldn't even have retired yet. SpaceX was started in 2002, a mere 17 years ago. It is now, on this very day, on the verge of delivering hardware that can send people to Mars. In 30 years from now, if the optimists are correct, we'll be living on the Moon and probably Mars. If the optimists are correct, we'll be able to take a shuttle from Mars to Mercury itself by the time this event happens again. The optimists are probably wrong. But it doesn't hurt to dream.
- lisper 7y ago
  I remember a world without the internet, without personal computers, without ATM machines. I am a member of the last generation (until the apocalypse) who will know what life was like without these things. Traveling was more of an adventure back then because you were pretty much cut off from home. Nowadays, being away is not so different from being at home. We may be living on the moon in 2049. Whether that represents a net improvement in the human condition is another matter altogether.
  - kick 7y ago
    Why not just turn off your phone while traveling, or leave it at home?
    - ghaff 7y ago
      I'm not sure it's so much about communicating back home; I don't really stay in close touch with friends/family when I'm traveling. (Business is a different matter. I can far better continue to work today as usual even if I'm on the other side of the planet than I could have in the next city a few decades ago.) It's more that apps (maps, airlines, tripadvisor, restaurant/hotel sites, etc.) have really transformed travel to many places in a huge number of ways over just about the past 10 years. I can't say I would really give that up very willingly. [Added: Though, if I'm being honest, I'd admit that expectations about being able to be reached and to reach others have shifted. When cell phones started to become popular, I sort of disliked how a lot of people increasingly assumed you could always call for help in an emergency. Today, if I were going to be in a remote area for an extended period by myself, I'd probably find it hard to justify not having a satellite messaging system.]
leeoniya 7y ago
thanks, chicago, for your near-permanent overcasts :( don't have a solar filter for my 6SE anyways, but got some excellent saturn and jupiter seeing this summer :)
kylek 7y ago
Link from TFA with (near?) live images from the SDO- https://mercurytransit.gsfc.nasa.gov/2019/ https://mercurytransit.gsfc.nasa.gov/2019/ edit: or just go to the main SDO data page- https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/ https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/
ChuckMcM 7y ago
And the SpaceX Starlink launch happens 2 hours later at 9:35AM ET. An interesting astrophotography opportunity to get a picture of both Mercury and a zillion little satellites transiting the Sun.
sixstringtheory 7y ago
For the last transit of Venus I rigged up a pair of binoculars to project one sight onto some posterboard a few feet away for the entire duration. It was great, Venus was about the size of a dime on the image. That was with a crappy old pair of binoculars I didn’t care about one way or another. Now I have a nice pair, do I risk damaging them by doing this?
- dreamcompiler 7y ago
  Yes. You risk overheating the adhesive that bonds the glass components internally, unless you use a solar filter on the front (sun end) of one tube of the binoculars, and complelely cap the other tube with its lens cap. My advice is to skip the binoculars. Instead use a simple magnifying glass like you can buy at an office supply store -- a round one, not a square one -- and a piece of poster board just like you did last time. It will work fine. The image will be upside down but who cares? If you can't get a magnifying glass, use a second piece of poster board and put a whole in the middle with a pin, or tack. The image on the other poster board will be very dim but almost as good.
- hazeii 7y ago
  Make a couple of cardboard disks that cover the front lens with smaller circular cutouts, effectively reducing the diameter of the front elements. If you make the holes say half the radius, you'll reduce the light by a factor of 4 (telescopes often comes with a front lens cover that have this sort of arrangement built in, either for solar projection or for observing the mount). Shouldn't need to say it here, but never, ever, look at the sun through binoculars or a telescope (even with filters or reducers). You won't get a second chance. [edit] Here's a pic from the 2003 transit, taken by projecting an image of the sun onto an A4 sheet of paper, using a 90mm refractor stopped down to about 25mm (Mercury at mid-upper left, the lower blob is a sunspot). http://hazeii.net/images/mercury_transit_2003.jpg http://hazeii.net/images/mercury_transit_2003.jpg
  - penagwin 7y ago
    Also same goes for non-Mirrorless Cameras as well!
aivisol 7y ago
Live stream from Roque de los Muchachos observatory in La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kr-8ESM-8M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kr-8ESM-8M
- aivisol 7y ago
  2,400 m above sea level
overcast 7y ago
Figures, there's a giant snow storm passing through the Northeast today :(
- mhb 7y ago
  Northeast what? Sunny where I am.
  - overcast 7y ago
    United States
angel_j 7y ago
Just yesterday I was looking for ephemerides, and found JPL's Horizon, which you can access with telnet: telnet horizons.jpl.nasa.gov 6775 You can type names, to get numbers (mercury is 1).
angel_j 7y ago
What effect will this event have on my mood, plans, and chance of success?

170 points by bharatsb 7y ago

starpilot 7y ago

To get you warmed up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Amh9uQNwWyA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Amh9uQNwWyA

ColinWright 7y ago

12:35Z : Starts 15:20Z : Mid-point 18:04Z : Ends Gutted to be missing this ... it's been in my diary for years.

rococode 7y ago

Here's a list of past/future times for this transit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_of_Mercury#Past_and_future_transits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_of_Mercury#Past_and_fu... It looks like the next one visible from anywhere (but presumably not in the US) will be in 2032

throwaway35784 7y ago

Will a welding mask work?

tinix 7y ago
you need a high shade, at least 14. just get a stack of neutral density filters, and some IR/UV block filters, and use a camera... you'll need magnification anyway.
- newnewpdro 7y ago
  You're reminding me of reports that people had returned very expensive rented telephoto lenses destroyed by sunlight after the last total lunar eclipse.
  - tinix 7y ago
    Those people suck, frankly. I own very expensive lenses, and equipment. I speak from experience. I was a professional photographer many years ago, though it's only a hobby these days. I filmed the crescendo of the 2017 solar eclipse and took photos throughout with a stack of IR/UV/ND filters: https://photos.app.goo.gl/CV9Ju3TkMtJKNL566 https://photos.app.goo.gl/CV9Ju3TkMtJKNL566 I had to remove most of the ND filters during totality because it was simply blocking too much light, so much so that clouds and stars are visible in some photos. I had >99% IR/UV cut and over 26 stops of wide-band light reduction in front of my lens. My equipment is fine, I assure you. Due diligence isn't hard; I looked up the spec sheets for every filter I purchased, and did the actual math, so much so that I had to remove a filter or two during totality to get the exposure that I wanted, because I was overly conservative to protect my equipment. But... yeah... though there were many people who destroyed equipment during the 2017 eclipse, that doesn't mean it can't be done safely and properly.
ranger207 7y ago
That's what I used for the transit of Venus, along with some binoculars. Make sure the glass is dark enough of course.
- chrisshroba 7y ago
  Please note that the welding mask needs to be put between the sun and the binoculars, not between the binoculars and the eyes. Otherwise, so much light from the sun will be focused by the binoculars that the welding mask will not be nearly enough to counteract it, and severe eye damage is pretty much a certainty. Also, note that many astronomers will say that only filters that are rated for solar use should be used, which a welding mask is not. So do this at your own risk.
  - lightedman 7y ago
    Welding masks may not be rated for solar, but given that they block out the insane amount of UVA-UVB generated by welding, and our atmosphere totally kills UVC, you're good to go as long as you aren't relying upon the auto-darkening ones.
sytelus 7y ago
Just look for any local astronomy groups doing public viewing event. Even the medium-size cities have such gatherings.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
dreamcompiler 7y ago
If it's around #15 or greater, but unlike the eclipse you won't be able to see anything interesting with just the welding mask. Mercury is too small. You need magnification, but if you use binoculars and you put the welding mask between the binocs and your eyes you will permanently damage your eyes and the binocs. Make a pinhole in a playing card and put a large piece of white cardboard a meter behind it. This will work well. It will be dim so you might need to arrange a large sheet of poster board around the playing card for shade.
tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago
https://eclipse.aas.org/eye-safety/iso-certification https://eclipse.aas.org/eye-safety/iso-certification says "The only ones that are safe for direct viewing of the Sun with your eyes are those of Shade 12 or higher." (which are rare because they're too dark for most welding) Other sources said 13 was the minimum. You're probably best off with a 13 or 14. I found 13 too bright.

njarboe 7y ago

Weird how the top of this page says the transit is on November 11th, but the side bar and main description section have it as November 12th. From the site rococode linked to, it is November 11, but it is a bit strange for NASA to have this wrong and inconsistent on its site. I hope to get a look tomorrow if the sky is clear.

faggotVote 7y ago

Hey, let's just downvote faggots because faggots.

nexuist 7y ago

Interesting to think about where we'll be when this happens again in 2049. It's a difference of only 30 years. 30 years ago was 1989. Yet life today compared to then is simply alien - technology has impacted the way everyone and every thing exists. The first self-powered flight was in 1903. Man landed on the Moon just 66 years later. In one lifetime you went from being perpetually constrained to the surface to literally flying above the sky, transcending all known heights, and you wouldn't even have retired yet. SpaceX was started in 2002, a mere 17 years ago. It is now, on this very day, on the verge of delivering hardware that can send people to Mars. In 30 years from now, if the optimists are correct, we'll be living on the Moon and probably Mars. If the optimists are correct, we'll be able to take a shuttle from Mars to Mercury itself by the time this event happens again. The optimists are probably wrong. But it doesn't hurt to dream.

lisper 7y ago
I remember a world without the internet, without personal computers, without ATM machines. I am a member of the last generation (until the apocalypse) who will know what life was like without these things. Traveling was more of an adventure back then because you were pretty much cut off from home. Nowadays, being away is not so different from being at home. We may be living on the moon in 2049. Whether that represents a net improvement in the human condition is another matter altogether.
- kick 7y ago
  Why not just turn off your phone while traveling, or leave it at home?
  - ghaff 7y ago
    I'm not sure it's so much about communicating back home; I don't really stay in close touch with friends/family when I'm traveling. (Business is a different matter. I can far better continue to work today as usual even if I'm on the other side of the planet than I could have in the next city a few decades ago.) It's more that apps (maps, airlines, tripadvisor, restaurant/hotel sites, etc.) have really transformed travel to many places in a huge number of ways over just about the past 10 years. I can't say I would really give that up very willingly. [Added: Though, if I'm being honest, I'd admit that expectations about being able to be reached and to reach others have shifted. When cell phones started to become popular, I sort of disliked how a lot of people increasingly assumed you could always call for help in an emergency. Today, if I were going to be in a remote area for an extended period by myself, I'd probably find it hard to justify not having a satellite messaging system.]

leeoniya 7y ago

thanks, chicago, for your near-permanent overcasts :( don't have a solar filter for my 6SE anyways, but got some excellent saturn and jupiter seeing this summer :)

kylek 7y ago

Link from TFA with (near?) live images from the SDO- https://mercurytransit.gsfc.nasa.gov/2019/ https://mercurytransit.gsfc.nasa.gov/2019/ edit: or just go to the main SDO data page- https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/ https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/

ChuckMcM 7y ago

And the SpaceX Starlink launch happens 2 hours later at 9:35AM ET. An interesting astrophotography opportunity to get a picture of both Mercury and a zillion little satellites transiting the Sun.

sixstringtheory 7y ago

For the last transit of Venus I rigged up a pair of binoculars to project one sight onto some posterboard a few feet away for the entire duration. It was great, Venus was about the size of a dime on the image. That was with a crappy old pair of binoculars I didn’t care about one way or another. Now I have a nice pair, do I risk damaging them by doing this?

dreamcompiler 7y ago
Yes. You risk overheating the adhesive that bonds the glass components internally, unless you use a solar filter on the front (sun end) of one tube of the binoculars, and complelely cap the other tube with its lens cap. My advice is to skip the binoculars. Instead use a simple magnifying glass like you can buy at an office supply store -- a round one, not a square one -- and a piece of poster board just like you did last time. It will work fine. The image will be upside down but who cares? If you can't get a magnifying glass, use a second piece of poster board and put a whole in the middle with a pin, or tack. The image on the other poster board will be very dim but almost as good.
hazeii 7y ago
Make a couple of cardboard disks that cover the front lens with smaller circular cutouts, effectively reducing the diameter of the front elements. If you make the holes say half the radius, you'll reduce the light by a factor of 4 (telescopes often comes with a front lens cover that have this sort of arrangement built in, either for solar projection or for observing the mount). Shouldn't need to say it here, but never, ever, look at the sun through binoculars or a telescope (even with filters or reducers). You won't get a second chance. [edit] Here's a pic from the 2003 transit, taken by projecting an image of the sun onto an A4 sheet of paper, using a 90mm refractor stopped down to about 25mm (Mercury at mid-upper left, the lower blob is a sunspot). http://hazeii.net/images/mercury_transit_2003.jpg http://hazeii.net/images/mercury_transit_2003.jpg
- penagwin 7y ago
  Also same goes for non-Mirrorless Cameras as well!

aivisol 7y ago

Live stream from Roque de los Muchachos observatory in La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kr-8ESM-8M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kr-8ESM-8M

aivisol 7y ago
2,400 m above sea level

overcast 7y ago

Figures, there's a giant snow storm passing through the Northeast today :(

mhb 7y ago
Northeast what? Sunny where I am.
- overcast 7y ago
  United States

angel_j 7y ago

Just yesterday I was looking for ephemerides, and found JPL's Horizon, which you can access with telnet: telnet horizons.jpl.nasa.gov 6775 You can type names, to get numbers (mercury is 1).

angel_j 7y ago

What effect will this event have on my mood, plans, and chance of success?