{"id":19392,"date":"2016-05-09T18:31:56","date_gmt":"2016-05-09T10:31:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/transit-of-mercury-how-you-can-watch-an-astronomical-rarity-despite-the-clouds\/"},"modified":"2016-05-09T18:31:56","modified_gmt":"2016-05-09T10:31:56","slug":"transit-of-mercury-how-you-can-watch-an-astronomical-rarity-despite-the-clouds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/transit-of-mercury-how-you-can-watch-an-astronomical-rarity-despite-the-clouds\/","title":{"rendered":"Transit of Mercury: How you can watch an astronomical rarity despite the clouds"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_247995\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-247995\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-247995\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/160505-transit2-630x421.jpg\" alt=\"Transit of Mercury\" width=\"630\" height=\"421\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/160505-transit2-630x421.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/160505-transit2.jpg 725w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-247995\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A multiple-exposure photo shows Mercury as a speck making its way across the sun\u2019s disk. (Credit: NASA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>For the first time in a decade, we Earthlings can watch the planet Mercury\u2019s black speck pass across the sun today \u2013 even in Seattle, where the skies are partly cloudy at best.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is one of the very rare opportunities to see the parts of the solar system in motion,\u201d said Stephanie Anderson, president of the Seattle Astronomical Society. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t happen very often, so when you get an opportunity, take it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The event got started&nbsp;at 4:12 a.m. PT, when the edge of our solar system\u2019s closest-in planet began its transit of the sun\u2019s disk. That was before dawn for West Coasters, so Seattleites had to wait until sunrise at 5:40 a.m., when the transit was in progress.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s assuming you could <em>see<\/em> the sunrise. The Seattle Astronomical Society had planned to gather at Snoqualmie Point Park for a viewing party, but the weather was so cloudy that the society called off its party. Instead, the society\u2019s website pointed people to these other potential viewing areas:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Meridian Middle School<\/strong>, 23400 120th Ave. SE, Kent, Wash.&nbsp;North of the school, at the adjacent ballfield.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Pierce College<\/strong> at Fort Steilacoom, 9401 Farwest Drive SW, Lakewood, Wash. Plans were set for presentations at the Pierce College Science Dome.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Seacrest Park<\/strong>, 1660 Harbor Ave. SW, West Seattle. Seattle Astronomy blogger&nbsp;Greg Scheiderer made plans to set up a telescope there for viewing.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The transit is due to wind up about 11:40 a.m. PT.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"ScienceCasts: The 2016 Transit of Mercury (updated)\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Gibaxh9x7O0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The important thing about witnessing the transit is to see it safely. Gazing at the sun runs the risk of doing severe eye damage, so you\u2019ll need to take precautions \u2013 or content yourself with watching the event online.<\/p>\n<p>Mercury transits take place 13 or 14 times in the course of a century, with the most recent occurrence in 2016. Since then, the world was wowed by 2012\u2019s transit of Venus. Unfortunately, today\u2019s event isn\u2019t as big, because Mercury is way smaller than Venus.<\/p>\n<p>To spot the speck, you really need a telescope with at least 50x magnification, Anderson said. And that telescope will need a solar filter good enough to head off any possibility of eye damage.&nbsp;Such filters can be ordered online, or purchased at places like Cloud Break Optics in Ballard (where Anderson is co-owner).<\/p>\n<p>There are still opportunities to see the transit online, and you won\u2019t have to worry about eye protection.&nbsp;The Slooh virtual observatory&nbsp;and Columbus State University\u2019s Coca-Cola Space Science Center are providing streaming video of the transit.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Transit of Mercury 2016\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rJwEIAN7UEQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>NASA\u2019s Solar Dynamics Observatory is capturing pictures of the sun in several wavelengths throughout the transit, and scientists are&nbsp;passing them along online in near-real time. You can choose from eight perspectives. There\u2019s likely to be pictures posted to SpaceWeather.com as well.<\/p>\n<p>Scientists have learned a lot about Mercury from space probes&nbsp;such as NASA\u2019s Messenger orbiter, which&nbsp;finished up its observations with a bang last year. That means there\u2019s less to learn from transits. Nevertheless, astronomers are&nbsp;analyzing ever-so-slight shifts in sunlight, as seen at the National Solar Observatory in New Mexico, to gain new insights about Mercury\u2019s thin exosphere.<\/p>\n<p>The next transit of Mercury is due on Nov. 11, 2019 \u2013&nbsp;but your sun-viewing skills are likely to get another workout well before that, when a total solar eclipse makes its way from coast to coast on Aug. 21, 2017. So even if Mercury\u2019s brush from the sun is less than spectacular, you can regard Monday\u2019s event as a warmup for the big show that\u2019s coming next year.<\/p>\n<p><em>This report was originally published on May 5 and updated with today\u2019s activities.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A multiple-exposure photo shows Mercury as a speck making its way across the sun\u2019s disk. (Credit: NASA) For the first time in a decade, we Earthlings can watch the planet Mercury\u2019s black speck pass across the sun today \u2013 even in Seattle, where the skies are partly cloudy at best. \u201cThis is one of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1661,2040,2170,4926],"class_list":["post-19392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-astronomy","tag-mercury","tag-sun","tag-transit-of-mercury"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19392"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19392\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}