Mercury Transit, 8:07-9:05 UT

A 9 image GIF movie of the planet movement in front of the solar disk during 58 minutes, highly compressed. File size 545 KB, may take some time to load.

Mercury is the small round and very dark spot which moves rapidly. Other spots below and at left are sunspots. South is up and west is to the left.

Exposure Data

Instrument: TMB 4.1" f/6.2 APO
F/stop: 6.2
Exposure: 9 x 10 milliseconds
CCD: SBIG ST-7E
Animation duration: 10:07 - 11:05 MESZ
Date: May 7, 2003
Location: Niederleis, Lower Austria
Conditions: Some cirrus clouds, guts of wind
Enhancement: Adobe Photoshop 6.0
Notes: 3 filters had to be used to reduce the sun's light to a level acceptable for the CCD: A photographic Thousand Oaks glass filter, a broad band H-alpha filter (normally used for deep-sky observations) and a sheet of rescue blanket (!)