Mercury Transit - May 9, 2016

On May 9, 2016, planet Mercury transited the sun, or passed directly in front of it, from 6:12AM to 1:42PM CDT. I'm not an early riser, so by the time I got out of bed, got everything together, and got the settings, and focus where I wanted them, I finally started getting some keeper shots just before 11:00. From there, I wanted to get a few more shots as Mercury moved the rest of the way across the sun, and especially get some shots of Mercury near the edge of the sun. I went out there about an hour later, and the clouds had already started moving in, and it was all over for me.

I only saved one picture, that I took at 10:59. The rest of them around the same time, were all pretty much the same picture. The second picture down, is just cropped a lot tighter, to show more detail. Obviously, the darker, rounder dot, is Mercury, while the rest are sunspots.






The last time this happened, was November 8, 2006.

The next time this will happen, is November 11, 2019.

The next time after that, will be November 13, 2032.

Mercury transits the sun about thirteen times a century



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