Transit of Mercury, May 9, 2016
Today (well, technically, yesterday now) was the 2016 Transit of Mercury. These happen much more frequently than transits of Venus. Mercury transits happen about every 7 years (13 or 14 times per century). I was watching the weather anxiously - I wanted this to be a dry run for the 2017 eclipse, but I was not able to travel on Monday so I was hoping that the weather would suffice here in Fort Collins. I watched the Fort Collins cleardarksky page continuously over the weekend, which helped me stay calm and collect my equipment to prepare for the expedition. Monday morning started with low clouds which cleared by about 6:30 or so - just in time for me to have all my equipment set up: From left-to-right, these are: A Meade 2045 4-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope on a tripod, with a glass front-surface solar filter. This was for visual use - which turned out handy, since I had about 8 or 10 visitors. A Lunt Solar LS60PT pressure-tuned H-alpha...