Transit of Mercury: just three weeks to go!

Just after midday on November 11th, the tiny planet Mercury will pass across the face of the Sun. Unlike solar eclipses, which only last a few minutes, this transit will go on for five and a half hours. Being November, however, the last couple of hours will be after the Sun has set here in the UK!

Well worth watching out for: the last one I saw was in May, 2003, when I was still teaching. I took a telescope into the Middle School in Yarmouth where I was working and even the hard-bitten kids of Great Yarmouth were intrigued to watch Mercury crawl across the Sun's disc.

NEVER look directly at the Sun with a telescope or binoculars: project the Sun's image onto a piece of white card as in the diagram below: you can then photograph this enlarged image. The second photo is one I took in the playground at Edward Worlledge Middle School in 2003!