Mercury Transit Background: A transit of Mercury across the Sun takes place when the planet Mercury passes directly between the Sun and a superior planet.
During a transit, Mercury appears as a tiny black dot moving across the Sun as the planet obscures a small portion of the solar disk.
Because of orbital alignments, transits viewed from Earth occur in May or November.
The last four such transits occurred on May 7, 2003; November 8, 2006; May 9, 2016; and November 11, 2019.
The next will occur on November 13, 2032.
A typical transit lasts several hours. Mercury transits are much more frequent than transits of Venus, with about 13 or 14 per century, primarily because Mercury is closer to the Sun and orbits it more rapidly.
There are only 14 transits of Mercury in the 21st century.
Description:During the November 2019 transit, Mercury first touches the Eastern edge of the Sun at 7:35 AM EST,
Mercury moves completely onto the Sun's disk at 7:37 AM EST, nearest center of Sun at 10:19 AM EST, forward edge of Mercury reaches the Western edge of Sun at 1:02 PM EST,
and Mercury leaves the Sun at 1:04 PM EST. It will take Mercury 5.5 hours to transit across the face of the Sun.
Equipment used: Nikon D750 DSLR attached to Stellarvue SV90 refractor on Celestron mount. Solar filter mounted on refractor. Used illuminated eyepiece to finish alignment. Attached Nikon to field flattener, to Stellarvue SV90. Attached 27 inch monitor to Nikon. Used the monitor to track progress and help focus. Aligned using EQ-N Solar System-Sun. Changed tracking speed to Solar.
Camera Settings: Started with 1/500 second ISO 100. Adjusted shutter speed throughout the day to account for clouds.
Frames and Processing Started at 7:00 AM but Sun still in trees. Sun above trees at ~7:15 AM. Transit starts at 7:36 AM. Interval set to 30 seconds, camera set to 1/500 sec, ISO 100, full manual. Refocused using LiveView and monitor. Continually monitored progress. Adjusted shutter speeds throughout the day due to clouds, etc. Changed from 1/250, 1/400, and 1/500. Imaged until about 1:15 PM. Could see Mercury transit across the face of the Sun. Took 702 images.
Processing: Used Photoshop to crop, center, and adjust contrast. Then used Cyberlink PowerDirector 15 to create a video.
Mercury Transit 2019