Mercury Transit May 7th

Hi,

In case anyone forgot, the transit of Mercury is happening tomorrow morning.

Event Universal Position Sun Sun
Time [1] Angle[1] Alt [2] Az [2]

Contact I 05:12:56 15° 3:44° 66:29° ENE
Contact II 05:17:24 14° 4:20° 67:22° ENE
Greatest 07:52:23 333° 26:53° 98:01° E
Contact III 10:27:19 292° 47:24° 137:55° SE
Contact IV 10:31:46 291° 47:39° 139:05° SE

[1] sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/OH/transit03.html
[2] XEphem
Those times are UT, So add an hour for local time.

Myself and Jim will be at Sandymount Tower car park, Dublin from about 6am
till 11 to watch the event. Map: www.esatclear.ie/~ias/ima/tower.jpg
(Where the last IAS public night was)

The weather forecast is now looking better for tomorrow too.

Please feel free to drop down, and bring a telescope(+filter) with you if
you can!

The South Dublin Astronomy Society will also be meeting in Bushy Park in Dublin tomorrow morning.

Cheers,
~Al

Well most of the country seems to have gotten clear spells to watch at least some of the transit!

Heres a couple of webcam stacked images that I got at Sandymount:

www.cademuir.net/astro/images/Merc2-processed.jpg is a nice pic of
Mercury and the large sunspot

and

www.cademuir.net/astro/images/Merc3-processed.jpg is just a pic of
mercury against the disc.

Any other reports/pics?

Cheers,
~Al

www.ulo.ucl.ac.uk/~ts/mercury-07-05-2003.html

Look at the last Image