On this day twelve years ago the planet Mercury transited the sun. Visible from North America, I captured the event from my driveway using a Celestron C8 and a Logitech Quickcam. The picture on the right is one of the better frames. Originally captured in b&w this is a colorized version and it? shown full size. Imaging sensors were pretty small back then.
It’s amazing how technology has progressed over the years. My cellphone has a faster processor and more memory than the computer used to capture this image (likely it was a 386 PC running Windows 95). Also greatly improved over the last decade are my skills. I’d probably get a better image now but I was pretty excited back then.
Planets transiting the sun are relatively rare events. There will not be another visible Mercury transit until 2016!
