The May 9, 2016 transit of Mercury across the Sun, in a frame captured near the moment of third contact with the disk of Mercury


The May 9, 2016 transit of Mercury across the Sun, in a frame captured near the moment of third contact with the disk of Mercury nearly tangent to the Sun’s limb. The wobbly seeing produces a minor “black-drop” effect. My location in British Columbia and low horizon cloud prevented me from capturing the early portion of the transit. My sequence of shots started about an hour before mid-transit with the Sun in the clear free of clouds but still fairly low and subject to poor seeing conditions. This is with the 130mm Astro-Physics refractor with a 2X Barlow for an effective focal length of 1560mm at f/12, and with the Canon 60Da at ISO 100 for 1/250th second exposure through a Kendrick solar filter. Shot from the parking lot of the Alpine Motel in Kamloops, BC, a location forced by the need to escape clouds in Alberta and south-eastern BC on eclipse morning.


Size: 5184px × 3456px
Location: Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada
Photo credit: © Alan Dyer / VWPics / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

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