Second of Fourteen Transits of Mercury this Century
For what will be a great spectacle, Mercury is passing right in front of the sun for the 2nd time (of 14) this century!
Having never seen a transit of anything before (Mercury and Venus being the only two we can see from earth), I'm really wanting to buy myself a telescope and solar filter to take a look.
New Zealand is in the privileged position of being able to see the entire thing from Contact I though to Contact IV (a good explanation of contacts).
If my timezone calculations aren't completely off, it should be occuring between 08:12 and 13:10 tomorrow, Thursday 9th November.
Now go out and have a look (but not without a proper filter). You won't be able to see if with your naked eye, but a small telescope should be big enough (again, DO NOT look at it without a proper solar filter)!
After having seen the 1999 solar eclipse from a location giving totality , I find anything to do with the sun to be pretty amazing. At that time, I was working at ESOC on XMM-Newton so that made it extra special. BTW: we did our LEOP procedures from the control room.
But still, my favourite things about the sun is the images that SOHO has been taking.
This post originated on http://chilts.org/.
Email me on andychilton -at- gmail -dot- com.