May 14, 2016
The Mercury Transit, a short summary
As of this writing the ALPO Solar Section received 26 submissions of observations of the Mercury Transit. The transit was well advertised in the JALPO and Solar blog through John Westfall’s article about the transit. In order to accommodate the request to provide a number of images taken exactly at the full hour, a number of submissions were filed which were taken to the second at XX.00 .00 UT. It is our understanding that some of these images have been used by individuals to re-calculate the distance between the Earth and the Sun ( 1 AU). In addition several composite images showed the planet as it tracked in front of the sun and during ingress and egress. Take a look at the archive to see what was submitted:
http://www.alpo-astronomy.org/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=82053
We’d like to thank all that took the time to observe this event and submit their observations.
The ALPO Solar team.
