Sam, May 9, Monday
Would you prefer BMC or Main campus?
I'm sure Loretta would be fine with a viewing up at BMC, if you want it
there.
Let me know, and i'll get it set up.
Terri
On Sat, Dec 12, 2015 at 10:48 PM, insanas <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
The last time we had a Mercury transit we held a PAS solar viewing at
PVCC. May 9th will be a Monday morning. I hope we can schedule a sImliar
event. We have solar scopes.
Bob Ewing and Terri, what do you think?
Kevin could do a press release like the one he did in Sept for the Lunar
eclipse. If we can"t hold it at PVCC, we could have it in a nearby park
depending on whether we open it up to the public at large. Any ideas? Sam
Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone
-------- Original message --------
From: Alex Vrenios <axv@xxxxxxx>
Date: 12/12/2015 10:23 PM (GMT-07:00)
To: pasmembers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [pasmembers] Re: Transit of Mercury this spring
Thanks Kevin!
The Astronomical League had a Venus Transit certificate and pin and they
are planning to do the same with this one. We are required to take some
data, however. This will probably be the times you observed the “contact”
points, but the AL says more details are forthcoming…
They did have a list of the contact points and some other information:
---
The next planet to transit the sun is the planet Mercury on May 9, 2016.
Details on transit are available from NASA on this site: http://
http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/transit/transit.html
Note that for those of us in the eastern United States, the entire transit
will be visible. For those in the western United States, the transit will
be already in progress at sunrise, so we will not be able to observe the
entire event. Timings for the contacts are:
Event UT
Contact I 11:14, May 9, 2016
Contact II 11:17, May 9, 2015
Maximum Transit 14:58, May 9, 2015
Contact III 18:39, May 9, 2015
Contact IV 18:42, May 9, 2015
Definition of contact points:
• Contact I: when the leading edge of the planet first touches the edge
of the Sun.
• Contact II: when the planet is initially completely on the disk of the
Sun.
• Maximum Transit: when the planet is at maximum transit (the middle).
• Contact III: when the leading edge of the planet first reaches the far
edge of the Sun.
• Contact IV: when the planet is initially completely off the disk of the
Sun.
Mercury is small and so far from Earth and its silhouette is visible only
with magnification, but be sure to use proper filters to protect your eyes.
—
I look forward to this event and hope to have the proper filters, etc.,
necessary to enjoy it. Maybe we’ll have a group viewing?
Alex
On Dec 12, 2015, at 9:43 PM, kjwitts@xxxxxxx wrote:Sun.
On May 9th, 2016, there will be a partial transit of Mercury across the
Arizona.
It will be a full transit from the East coast, but only partial here in
hours ahead of us here in Phoenix.
The transit runs from 11:12 am to 6:42pm UTC, which is, I believe, 7
provided that it's a clear day.
We should be able to view it from sunrise until 11:42 am in Phoenix,
I'll be watching. The next one is in 2019.
Kevin
