\nYou can seriously damage your eyesight if viewing is not done properly.
\n<\/strong><\/span>
\nIf you have eclipse glasses, these will not<\/span> <\/strong>allow you to view the transit.
\nMercury is far too small to be visible without being magnified using a telescope with the correct filters.<\/p>\n
The view below my white light image of the transit of VENUS<\/strong><\/span> in 2004.<\/p>\n Venus is big enough and close enough to be seen without magnification, as you can see here. In fact, it may be a bit of a disappointment to some who do get to view it.<\/p>\n So I hear your next question, What does a transit of Mercury look like then?<\/p>\n The image below is my white light DSLR image of the transit of Mercury from 2016. My image below taken using a hydrogen Alpha telescope shows this transit a little while later at about mid transit in much greater detail. My closer view below shows it in a bit more detail. So now you know exactly what to expect if you have the correct filters in order to view the transit safely.<\/p>\n So if you are going to try and observe the transit here are the details of the timings of the day.<\/p>\n The transit starts at 12:35 UT.<\/strong><\/span> Mid transit occurs at 15<\/strong>:19 UT. Sunset occurs at about 16:30 UT.<\/strong><\/span> The transit finishes at 18:04 UT. The next transits of Mercury will occur on November 2032 and November 2039.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A transit of Mercury occurs on the 11th of November. We see the very start of the transit and the fleet-footed planet will be visible as a very, very small black dot moving slowly across the Sun. Do Not try and view The Sun unless you have proper solar filters in place. You can seriously […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"slim_seo":{"title":"Transit of Mercury - 11th of November. - Star-Gazing","description":"A transit of Mercury occurs on the 11th of November. We see the very start of the transit and the fleet-footed planet will be visible as a very, very small blac"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3349"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3362,"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3349\/revisions\/3362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-content\/uploads\/Venus-Transit-0636.jpg\"){kind=spacer}
<\/p>\n
\nUnfortunately, Mercury is nowhere near as big as this, so will not appear anywhere near as impressive.<\/p>\n
\nThe smudge towards the top of the image is a sunspot group (AR 2542).
\nMercury is the much smaller dot in the lower part of The Sun.
\nTitchy isn’t it?<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-content\/uploads\/White-LightMercuryTransit.jpg\"){kind=spacer}
<\/p>\n
\nMercury is still titchy! But as the detail is better, you can now see that it is showing a definite disk.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-content\/uploads\/AS_p60_Multi_Drizzle15_video0002-16-23-29_g3_b3_ap611_stitchWP.jpg\")
<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nMercury is towards the left hand side of the image.
\nYou can really see how much darker the planet is when compared to the sunspots and filaments.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-content\/uploads\/AS_p60_Multi_Drizzle15_video0007-16-28-15_g3_b3_ap992WP.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nIf you are using a hydrogen alpha telescope, you will be able to see Mercury slightly before the white-light view, as the chromosphere is a bit bigger than the photosphere.
\nMercury will approach from the left-hand side of The Sun, just below the centre of the limb.
\nIt would be very nice if there was a prominence on that side of The Sun, that it would pass over first. But we can only dream, Eh!
\nMind you, having a sunny day, and being able to see this, might be a miracle in itself!<\/p>\n
\n<\/span><\/strong>At this time the planet will be located just above the very centre of The Sun’s disk.<\/p>\n
\nSunset will prevent us from viewing the conclusion of the event, so it will be only just over halfway across the disk when this occurs. As a result we will miss Mercury slowly sliding off the Sun’s disk.<\/p>\n
\n<\/span><\/strong>Mercury finally leaves the disk of The Sun.
\nWe will leave that part of the event for our American friends. The whole event is visible from the eastern side of North America. The whole of South America can view the complete transit.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-content\/uploads\/MercuryTransit-2019111.png\"){kind=spacer}
<\/p>\n