The 2003 Mercury Transit


We (some enthousiastic guys from the Planetary Missions Division of ESA/ESTEC)  have observed the Mercury transit in front of the main gate of ESTEC. About 600 people looked through our telescopes... We had set up:

  • A 5" Celestron showing the complete sun in projection;
  • My 6" Meade refractor with a Thousand Oaks glass filter with an Astrovid 2000 video camera, showing the enlarged Mercury on a video monitor, or, for special guests, via a flip mirror in real life;
  • A 10" Meade Schmidt-Cassegrain and an H-alpha filter showing the prominences of the sun.
    • Here are some images obtained with the Astrovid.
     
     
    click to enlarge

    A mosaic of Mercury, the large single sunspot, and the bipolar group.

    		 The image with only Mercury can be seen here:

    click to enlarge

     

    This page prepared by dvk, 09 Nov 2003. Last update 22 Nov 2003.
    Return to Koschny's Astronomy.