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2003 Transit of Mercury
angkor writes "It is happening today (all day in Asia)!
NASA's SOHO page, Fred Espenak's 'Transit of Mercury' site, and live webcasts of the transit. You'll want to use the webcast, in spite of advice from our hometown paper, the Bangkok Post, which reported 'those interested in viewing it directly were advised to watch through black tinted glasses.'"
The transit is already over. Here is a direct link to the ESO site about it (with pictures). There's a Venus transit coming up next year, however, which is much rarer.
which reported 'those interested in viewing it directly were advised to watch through black tinted glasses.'"
Yeah, and then they don't need black glasses no more. Or any glasses, for that matter. Or even light.
It only takes a couple of stupid incidents like this to strike fear in parents and teachers everywhere. Now many schools close the blinds and go through what ammounts to a 'duck and cover' bomb drill whenever there's an eclipse.
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It'll have to idle in traffic waiting for it's turn to merge onto the highway.
"I only speak the truth"
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This is what your eyes will look like if you watch the event through dark tinted glasses.
No way. That's not nearly safe enough, project it onto a piece of white paper with a pinhole camera. Then you won't get the dark glasses obscuring your view, either. A little ingenuity often prevails over a little consumerism. ;)
But we can take credit if it catches on fire from the stress.
The reason you have to wear them, is that Mercury emits certain poisonous gases which traverse through the earth's atmosphere and might be dangerous. This can lead to loss of eyesight, decrease and breathing capacity and irritablity.
Please do wear the glasses, mercury is cool, but so are your eyes!
And no cult proclaiming the end of the world? How odd..
Hopefully someone can answer this litle question of mine.
Since Mercury orbits the sun in only 88 days, why can we see transists more often than about 13 times a century (according to space.com)?
Same thing with Venus, since it's in a orbit inside ours it must *at least* pass earth on the 'inside track' once a year. Is it because the orbits a slightly inclined or sometihng?
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Nice images, but it would have been fun to see them while it was happening. by 9:00AM EST, it's already 1PM in England (just past the "transit at sunrise" area) and the sun has already set in India, smack dab in the middle of the "full transit visible" area. So it looks like we missed the whole thing by about five hours. I know the pictures are the same, but there's something nice about seeing the pictures when it's really happening.
But then again, the slashdot crowd would have pummeled the webcams. I'd rather let the people who are really interested in this stuff get to the site for the live webcasts. Those people certainly don't want a large group of mildly interested people drowning the servers.
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
Don't forget about the total lunar eclipse coming in less than a week. [May 16]. Very romantic! Have fun.
---
the pen is mightier than the sword, the sword is mightier than the court, the court is mightier than the pen.
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Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
I'm no expert in these matters, but maybe the transits occur primarily at night when the sun is switched off. This would make sense because Mercury would probably catch on fire if it were to pass so close to the sun while it were hot.
--- Jason Olshefsky
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Really, is this worth a webcast? Comets are beautiful. Meteor showers are beautiful. Solar eclipses are awe inspiring. But this? It's just a black dot travelling across the sun. I don't doubt that this has enormous scientific value for astronomers and planetary scientists with the right instruments, but the average punter could achieve the same effect using a torch.
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
I guess I just don't quite understand something. The article *seems* to state that this event hasn't happened in 100 years. That doesn't make sense to me. As Mercury revolves around the sun in I believe 88 days, this should happen 4.x times during the Earths 365 day orbit. Maybe they were implying it just hadn't happened during the daytime in Bangkok in 100 years?
(Stolen sig) Remember: it's a "Microsoft virus", not an "email virus", a "Microsoft worm", not a "computer worm
Just wondering, like another poster commented as to what significance does this have? What would happen, lets say if first 5 planets are in transit? a) is it possible? b) has it happened before? c) I'd speculate, cause first 5 planets are in straight line with sun, there'd have to be some gravitational interaction between all these celestial bodies, could this be enough to lets say pluck jupiter's moon into its own orbit, or if conditions are right, what if one of Mar's moons get tugged into its own orbit, and we end with 10 planets...I don't even wanna think about Earth's moon...
I am at loss with words...
Anyone in East Asia (I'm in Japan) is SOL according to that link. No eclipse visible here.
Those of you in Europe will get to see it around Moon-set. That sounds pretty cool, as long as the sunrise doesn't drown it out (and I guess it wouldn't). Anyone out there w/ a camera and a long lens (spotting scope, or telescope) care to wake up early and snap a few pictures?
You folks on the west coast of the States will get to see it at Moon-rise (read, sun-set), so grab your girlfriend (or at least a camera and long lens), head out and watch the sun-set and then turn around.
I'm jealous.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
for the record, this is posted on /. before the event. See this link over at NASA.
Summary: Atlantic Ocean, eastern half of the US, eastern third of Canada see the whole thing. People in Europe and Africa see it at moonset, while those in the rest of US and Canada see it at moonrise.
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
"I assure you, there is no Mercury transit. Truly, Mercury is not even in this solar system!"
MSS
Don;t listen to thesr poeple, I spent hours as a kid starring at teh sun, adn my visoin is fine! ;]
The future isn't what it used to be.
Here's another spoiler: you will die alone.
No living person has witnessed a Venus transit. The next one occurs June 8, 2004. If all goes well, on that day I'll be on a beach at a resort in Mauritius, with a video camera and a telescope, and I might actually succeed in capturing a DV stream. The weather prospects in Mauritius are not the best, but considering that the best prospects for clear skies are in Iran and Turkey, I'll take my chances in Mauritius.
Edith Keeler Must Die
Hours before, and all during the transit all of the live sites, especially NASA's were incredibly slow, I though they must have been slashdotted, but I even checked to see if it was advertized onk /. but I guess not until this morning. But the videos are pretty sweet, go watch them!
Patent: from Latin patere, to be open
Why do we get tons of rumours, games, and linux stuff some BSD (getting better).
But something as timely and rare as a transit?
Oh it'll happen, oh wait it DID happen?
FIST PSOT
Wait a sec? Jupiter only has one moon?!? I guess it must've eaten the other 59 moons. Was it Io? Lousy fuck. Or maybe Ganymede? I bet it was Europa.. or maybe Callisto. I doubt it was Metis or Adrastea. Thebe's too weak to do anything like that. Maybe it was Themisto, I always knew he had it out for Leda, Himalia, Lysithea, and Elara. S/2000 is just strange. Iocaste might do something like that, if someone suicidal like Praxidike or Harpalke decided they were sick of looking at the likes of Ananke, Isonoe, Erinome, or Taygete. Wait.. no, I know, it was probably Chaldene, working together with Carme and Pasiphae. They've always hated the likes of Kalyke, Megaclite, Sinope, and Callirrhoe. Could it possibly have been those piece of shit S/2001's. Maybe they had a gang war with the S/2003's. NO! I'VE GOT IT! It was that worthless no good S/2002 asshole who dunnit. Those small fucks always have short fuses....
What was I talking about?
Warning: You will go blind in a fraction of a second....
;)
Sounds like those old masturbation jokes
1.) Pour Mercury into sutiable containainer. ... Somehow...
;)
2.) Move container around whilst preforming live webcast.
3.) ???
4.) Profit
Quite frankly I'm amazed someone would throw venture capital at this now the dotcom era is gone.
Maybe I should RTFA
Here's another reason why it's rarer than you'd first assume:
Mercury orbit: 88 days.
Earth orbit: 365 days.
Mercury is 4.14772 times faster than Earth. However, that doesn't mean that it's passes Earth 4.14772 times in an Earth year.
Instead of working out the math using these two rates, think of a 12 hour span and a truely analog clock. The minute and hour hands overlap at the following specific times:
t=12:00 exactly (first pass)
t=between 1:05 and 1:06 (second pass)
t=between 2:10 and 2:11 (third pass)
t=between 3:16 and 3:17 (fourth pass)
t=between 4:21 and 4:22 (fifth pass)
t=between 5:27 and 5:28 (sixth pass)
t=between 6:32 and 6:33 (seventh pass)
t=between 7:38 and 7:39 (eighth pass)
t=between 8:43 and 8:44 (ninth pass)
t=between 9:49 and 9:50 (tenth pass)
t=between 10:54 and 10:55 (eleventh pass)
t=between 11:59 and 12:00 (twelvth pass)
But, the twelvth pass is not technically correct, since it really is 12:00 or the first pass. Even if it were, then the twelvth and first pass would occur in the same "pass".
Therefore, in a 12 hour span (on average), the minute hand passes the hour hand 11 times, even though it's 12 times faster (12 revolutions of the minute hand for 1 revolution of the hour hand). It's a tricky question that I haven't heard in a very very very long time.
This issue would only account for about 1/4 of the "missing" Mercury passes, but that's a big amount of error anyway. When you look at the missing Venus passes, since the orbits are much closer in time, the assumption error (described above) is significantly larger.
This is aside from any other mis-alignment factors such as planetary inclinations.
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Damn it. Forgot the Preview feature... That'll teach me.
This is not my sig.
For those of you who are interested, Celestia is an Open Source application that can simulate the movements of the planets in 3d and generate some really cool pictures. It's available for Linux, Win32, and MacOSX.
One particularly good gallery is the Celestial Phenomina one by "Calculus." An example of a cool image is Saturn transit of the Sun as seen from Uranus in 2669.
- AlanH
>When I compared the downloaded songs to the >real CD it was no contest. The uncompressed >CD .AIFF files sounded much, much, much better.
I nominate the author for the "No Shit Sherlock" award. Just wait until this guy discovers MP3s.
I think using binoculars to project an image onto a piece of paper gives a better picture than a pinhole camera, but it is the same idea.
Projected images are so much safer than looking through anything, plus more than one person can look at a projected image at the same time.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
...not to look into the eyes of the sun.
"But Momma, that's where the fun is!"
Just junk food for thought...
There's a little black spot on the sun today.... :)
The clearance system sounds logical. It is not. It is completely arbitrary. -- John Bolton