Transit of Mercury - Monday (AM) November 11. 2019

[petemn2004]

A week from today the planet Mercury will transit the sun on Monday November 11, 2019. This will be the last transit of Mercury that will potentially be visible from Minnesota until the year 2049.

The transit is a long one, almost across the the center of the sun. It will be "on" the sun at sunrise as viewed from Minnesota. Closest to the sun's center at 9:20 AM CST and leaves the sun's surface at 12:04 PM CST.

Now if the clouds stay away.

Mark Petersen

[petemn2004]

Correction: 6 days from today. This coming Monday.

[markjob]

Thanks for those details.

Mark

[merle]

ELO will be open for the transit as well as many other sites as part of the Statewide Star Party. Links to the Statewide events are on the MAS home page at www.mnastro.org

Merle

[setnes]

I have been asked to provide a weather report for the Mercury transit on Monday, so here it goes.

The surface of the sun will be about 9,941 °F.  The corona, for some reason, will be much, much hotter than that.  It could be nearly 9,000,000 °F.  The core, where Hydrogen fusion is currently occurring, will be even hotter at 28,000,000 °F.

Meanwhile, on Mercury, I predict a very clear sky.  If you want to be facing Earth however, you better pack your booties.  It's gonna be cold.  The nighttime side of Mercury gets to -280 °F.  If you're really daring, you'd choose to be on the daytime side of Mercury.  The temperature on that side gets all the way up to 800 °F.  If you found the perfect temperature somewhere between those extremes, you actually might be able to keep up with it.  A solar day on Mercury (176 Earth days) lasts longer than its orbit around the sun (87.97 Earth days).  Even at Mercury's equator you would be able to walk along with the day-to-night transition at about 2.255 miles per hour. You might not want to stay all day though. The circumference of Mercury is about 9525 miles.

Back on Earth, at Eagle Lake Observatory, NOAA is predicting a chilly morning with clouds, but there is hope.  Canada is predicting a clear morning after sunrise.  Both of these forecasts are still long term, 10-day, models.  Hopefully we'll see more clear sky in the forecast as the week progresses.  Keep in mind the Mercury transit is a long event.  Hopefully we'll have clear sky for at least part of it.

Also, stop asking me for weather reports this far out.

[petemn2004]

The weather predictions I have seen for tomorrow mornings transit look promising.

[rdavidjohnson63]

I was in Pioneer Park in Little Canada and managed to get images starting about 8:45 am through the rest of the event. I was shooting every 15 seconds. I am working to create a GIF of about 10% of the images but I had tracking issues, so I am working to get them all aligned.

I don't have PixInsight and cannot justify getting it just yet. Any suggestions for free Windows or Linux software to do this would be greatly appreciated.