Astroblog: Capturing Elusive Mercury

Friday, November 04, 2005

Capturing Elusive Mercury

Mercury is the bright dot just near the roof in this image (click on the image to see a larger high definition view), Antares shines next to the crescent Moon and Venus blazes up high. After a fairly ordinary day weather wise the sky cleared up nicely, and I was able to see Mercury at it's greatest elongation from the Sun. After a rather delicious home made Pizza and while the others watched Strictly Dancing, I set up the scope and the camera. I shot of some images with the camera (including the one here) and turned to the scope.

My original plan was to get the focus sorted out on the Moon, then quickly shift to Mercury and get some quick shots before being called upon to go out and purchase icecreams. This plan did not take account of the hordes of particularly viscous mosquitoes lusting for my corpuscles. Now, normally mosquitoes ignore me, going for the more piquant flesh of my Bettdeckererschnappender weisle. However, this mob wanted me. After doing the mosquito slappping dance and mass mosquito destruction, I got Mercury in my scope moments before it disappeared behind the roof of the house next door. I'll process the shots later, but I doubt they will be exciting.

But again it was a beautiful might, with the crescent Moon cradling Earthglow, next to red Antares, Mercury glittering not far below. The only thing needed to make this a perfect night was a can of industrial strength mosquito replellent, the kind that melts plastic (and yes, the icecreams were delicious).

# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 10:23 pm

Comments:

Is my browser broke, or is there not an image? :) Not very often one gets to see Mercury.

# posted by

Anonymous : 6:46 am

I can see an image. Is Mercury the dot next to the silhouette of a pole?

# posted by

Anonymous : 7:23 am

Yes, there is an image. As Stuart says, it's the dot next to the pole. I can see it even with my dodgy monitor. You have to click on the image to get the full size image (and Mozilla rescales it so you nay have to click again to get it in all its glory, showing most of the stars of the scorpion. I have other images with Mercury higher in the sky, but they don't show the stars so clearly. I've just finished processing my telescope shots. You can see a fuzzy disk :-)

# posted by