A Transit of Mercury in front of the Sun is happening, and after at first I am mentally in the wrong time zone, at least I have set up well in time. My sun filter for the C11 needs a dab of lacquer to cover a bald spot, my blackboard lacquer is in hiding, so I use anti-rust. Which is also opaque.

Using the help of visitors, I set up in the garden, make no big effort in polar aligning the mount (Polaris is notoriously difficult to spot during daylight hours). The camera has been prepared and I am ready to start shooting at Contact. A few nice sunspot groups shorten the wait. It is a very warm day, the air is quite lively, and I reduce exposure times to 1/1000th of a second. Still no help in getting a truly sharp image, but under the conditions, more is simply not possible.

During the day the air calms down a little, the image quality gets slightly better, and I take pictures until the sun hides itself in upcoming cloud cover. The transit is about half over. On the side, I use Erla’s discount ‘scope for optical observation. And since I’m in the garden, anyway, I do some chores in between taking pictures.

The results are not exactly NASA quality, and the images to not replicate the sense of depth I get from direct observation. But more, as already said, just is not in the cards. After I had had to miss the Transit of Venus a few years ago due to health reasons, at least now I have something to show.