Photos of the Transit!
Published on Nov 8, 2006 at 6:25 pm.
3 Comments.
Filed under astrophotography, planets.
Here are some photos of the transit for those of you who missed it. I was using a Nikon D70 at prime focus on an 8″ Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope (focal length 2000mm). Most of these were 1/1000 second exposures, effective ISO 200.
You can see a very nice sunspot to the left with a clear penumbra and a nice dark umbra in its core. There are a couple of sunspots to the right, and if you click on the images and look closely there is a hint of granulation in some of them, as well as faculae.
-Astroprof
Andrew on November 10, 2006 at 3:14 pm: 1
Those are some beautiful shots!.I wish I had the good weather to get some of my own but,Mother nature had other plans for me like…rain!!!.Oh well,maybe next time?!.
Astroprof’s Page » Mercury Stationary on February 13, 2007 at 4:16 pm: 2
[…] Rather, as Mercury orbits the Sun, from our vantage point on Earth, the planet seems to swing from one side of the Sun to the other. Back on January 6, Mercury was directly opposite the Sun from Earth. Mercury has since been moving a bit farther to the east in the sky each day. We call this prograde motion. Mercury got as far from the Sun as it was going to get on February 7. Now, it is starting to swing back to pass in front of the Sun, which it will do February 23 at about 05:00 UT (11pm on February 22 here in Texas). But, the Sun itself moves a little bit (nearly a degree) to the east in the sky every day relative to the stars. So, even with Mercury getting closer to the Sun for nearly a week, it has still been getting farther east in the sky. But, finally today, it got as far east as it was going to get. It is now moving toward the Sun’s position in the sky faster and faster as it moves towards inferior conjunction (the point between Earth and the Sun), so it now appears to be moving to the west in the sky. We call this retrograde motion. When it reaches inferior conjunction on February 23, though, don’t expect a repeat of the transit from November 8. This time, Mercury will actually appear to pass just north of the Sun in the sky instead of directly in front of it. […]
Astroprof’s Page » Ascending Node on May 4, 2007 at 4:22 pm: 3
[…] Here, you can see all of Mercury’s orbit. This makes it clear what that second line is. It is also Mercury’s orbit! Remember, Mercury’s orbit is tilted with respect to Earth’s orbit. And, Earth is not oriented at the moment in a position along the line of nodes. So, we are seeing the orbit from an angle. So, we get this skewed perspective. Now, if Earth were oriented along the line of nodes, then the orbit of Mercury would pass directly in front of the face of the Sun. If Mercury happened to be at that point in its orbit at the same time, then we’d be able to see it transit in front of the Sun, as it did this past November, when I took these photographs. […]