Mercury Transit from Cardigan

We have been waiting to witness a Mercury transit for many a year, always the weather has misbehaved ... not today!

The transit began at 12.35pm and went on for about five hours.

The huge scudding black and white clouds hampered the viewing session, which meant that between 12.35pm and 2.00pm I only managed about five minutes of actual observing..... it was a perfect five minutes.

The little refractor and digicam behaved beautifully, and returned several photos that I later processed. 

The results can be seen on this blog post.

We decided to go to Cardigan, as I reckoned the weather would be kinder to us. 

It was a great afternoon, some people stopped and asked what was going on, a few had a quick peep at the little planet's progress, plus we met up with a dear friend and drank tea in the camper van. 

By 2.00pm it was obvious that the clouds were winning the day, so we slowly packed up.

Cardigan was completely clouded out for the May 2016 Mercury transit, but today's Cardigan allowed that small five minute window.  

Diolch Aberteifi.!

Trying out my old digicam.

Last night, the gibbous Moon shone down over Crymych, I set up the small refractor and experimented a bit with my trusty old digicam. 

The same camera I used for taking many of my solar pictures back in 2011-2013.

Considering the camera has been kept in a drawer for the past few years, it still worked well. 

With luck, the transit next week will be within the grasp of the little refractor.

This morning I made a quick sketch of last night's Moon (Mare Imbrium region).

Today has been the first noticeably cold damp day this autumn, time to put the heating on!

As soon as the Sun allows, I will be outside with telescope and digicam capturing Sol.


Clear Skies