Thanks Alex!! Nice to hear from you and keep me posted!
Cheers
Bob E
On Apr 3, 2016 5:33 PM, "Alex Vrenios" <axv@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Good to hear from you again. Hope the new teaching position is working out
okay.
The process, as far as I can tell, is to get two full-sun photos from two
distant locations, at exactly the time that one of the observers sees
Mercury at Contact IV. That's when the planet is first completely outside
the solar disk. We could coordinate this over a cell phone call with a
simple 3-2-1-now.
Later, the two photo sizes are adjusted to precisely superimpose on one
another. Then the distance between the centers of the two planet positions
(one will still be at least partly inside the solar disk) can be measured
to provide the necessary datum for the calculations that follow. Several of
the distances (Mercury-to-Sun, e.g.) are provided by NASA data, and no one
expects these calculations to be very close to the actual AU value of 93
million miles. “Just send me what you get,” is the coordinator’s comment.
I am no astrophotographer, but I have a setup that I used to get several
shots of the Venus transit a few years back. It’s not that difficult to get
a full-sun photo through a properly filtered telescope with a digital
camera, or even an iPhone, for that matter, and I just picked up a bracket
to do that. I’ll run some tests.
Let me re-read all the details, make sure I’ve got the process right, and
think about this. I’ll get back to you. Thanks, Bob!
Alex
On Apr 3, 2016, at 4:54 PM, Robert Ewing <rrewing9@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi everyone! Wow that would be tough..... ..only 0.0347 arcseconds
parallax is difficult.....how about Portland to Phoenix.....100 times
farther apart, parallax of 3.47 arcseconds much more do-able......???
:-)
Of course it has to be CLEAR and SUNNY up here!!! Ha ha. Well, I'll try
and get some decent images if it is.....what camera/scale/magnification
were you thinking of, Alex??
Would be fun to team up with you guys!
Cheers!
Bob E
On Apr 3, 2016 12:53 PM, "Alex Vrenios" <axv@xxxxxxx> wrote:
The Astronomical League is offering an award (pin and certificate) for
meeting the requirements as stated on their website
http://astroleague.org. Scroll down to “Mercury Transit Special Award is
now here” and click on the word “here” at the end of that paragraph. This
page has all the requirements you must meet in order to receive the award.
All members of PAS are automatically PAS club affiliates of the AL so your
first requirement is already met.
The next set of requirements are not for the faint at heart. They involve
the cooperation of two observers at some distance apart (PVCC to BMC should
be enough) and a lot of trigonometry. You and your partner will be using
the separate observations to calculate “1 AU” the distance from the Earth
to the Sun.
I need to look at the details more carefully first, but I’d like to
propose a short talk about this at an upcoming meeting if there is any
interest.
Alex
