
The transit of Mercury starts at 7:35 am ET and will last for 5.5 hours - bharatsb
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/whats-up-skywatching-tips-from-nasa/
======
nexuist
Interesting to think about where we'll be when this happens again in 2049.

It's a difference of only 30 years. 30 years ago was 1989. Yet life today
compared to then is simply alien - technology has impacted the way everyone
and every _thing_ exists.

The first self-powered flight was in 1903. Man landed on the Moon just 66
years later. In one lifetime you went from being perpetually constrained to
the surface to literally flying above the sky, transcending all known heights,
and you wouldn't even have retired yet.

SpaceX was started in 2002, a mere 17 years ago. It is now, on this very day,
on the verge of delivering hardware that can send people to Mars.

In 30 years from now, if the optimists are correct, we'll be living on the
Moon and probably Mars. If the optimists are correct, we'll be able to take a
shuttle from Mars to Mercury itself by the time this event happens again.

The optimists are probably wrong. But it doesn't hurt to dream.

~~~
lisper
I remember a world without the internet, without personal computers, without
ATM machines. I am a member of the last generation (until the apocalypse) who
will know what life was like without these things. Traveling was more of an
adventure back then because you were pretty much cut off from home. Nowadays,
being away is not so different from being at home.

We may be living on the moon in 2049. Whether that represents a net
improvement in the human condition is another matter altogether.

~~~
lowercased
I remember black and white television, and CRT TV screens which shrunk and
faded to little dots when shut off. I remember having one telephone in the
house. I remember not having a computer in the house, then getting one
(Sinclair ZX81). I too remember life before ATMs.

In all these cases, I was a kid - these memories are all from maybe the age of
3-4 through early teens. I never navigated adult life without understanding
computers, although early adult life was without cell phone, without internet
access, without email, etc.

What I do remember is watching people adjust to these things. They were a
novelty, and in many cases, became expected/required for 'modern life'. I was
an early adopter, so even watching people my own age was interesting because I
could see people struggle with some tech or even concepts, and hearing
peoples' descriptions of technology changes has been interesting (often based
on rumor or just wrong).

re: being 'away' from home - in elementary school, we had a multi-week project
to "plan a trip" \- learning about maps, travel distance, budgeting for
hotels, food, etc. We had to write away to AAA for maps and info, then plan
out where we'd drive, where gas stations were, etc. That was a class project.
Today, you literally get in a car and talk to a device (or the car) and say
"give me directions to ...." some place halfway across the country, and you'll
get accurate turn by turn directions, with live traffic updates, and you can
find food/gas/shelter all while driving. Insane to think of those changes, but
it's just 'normal' to my younger family.

~~~
mumblemumble
I remember all of these things, too. I also remember trying to explain to my
great grandmother, who was born in the 19th century, how it was that my
brother and I were able to control what was happening on the TV screen.

And that's all I'm going to reflect on for now, lest I become tempted to burn
a week's worth of evenings reading Ray Kurzweil.

------
ColinWright

      12:35Z : Starts
      15:20Z : Mid-point
      18:04Z : Ends
    

Gutted to be missing this ... it's been in my diary for years.

------
aivisol
Live stream from Roque de los Muchachos observatory in La Palma, Canary
Islands, Spain:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kr-8ESM-8M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kr-8ESM-8M)

~~~
aivisol
2,400 m above sea level

------
kylek
Link from TFA with (near?) live images from the SDO-

[https://mercurytransit.gsfc.nasa.gov/2019/](https://mercurytransit.gsfc.nasa.gov/2019/)

edit: or just go to the main SDO data page-
[https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/](https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/)

------
rococode
Here's a list of past/future times for this transit:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_of_Mercury#Past_and_fu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_of_Mercury#Past_and_future_transits)

It looks like the next one visible from anywhere (but presumably not in the
US) will be in 2032

------
sixstringtheory
For the last transit of Venus I rigged up a pair of binoculars to project one
sight onto some posterboard a few feet away for the entire duration. It was
great, Venus was about the size of a dime on the image.

That was with a crappy old pair of binoculars I didn’t care about one way or
another. Now I have a nice pair, do I risk damaging them by doing this?

~~~
hazeii
Make a couple of cardboard disks that cover the front lens with smaller
circular cutouts, effectively reducing the diameter of the front elements. If
you make the holes say half the radius, you'll reduce the light by a factor of
4 (telescopes often comes with a front lens cover that have this sort of
arrangement built in, either for solar projection or for observing the mount).

Shouldn't need to say it here, but never, ever, look at the sun through
binoculars or a telescope (even with filters or reducers). You won't get a
second chance.

[edit] Here's a pic from the 2003 transit, taken by projecting an image of the
sun onto an A4 sheet of paper, using a 90mm refractor stopped down to about
25mm (Mercury at mid-upper left, the lower blob is a sunspot).

[http://hazeii.net/images/mercury_transit_2003.jpg](http://hazeii.net/images/mercury_transit_2003.jpg)

~~~
leeoniya
> Shouldn't need to say it here, but never, ever, look at the sun through
> binoculars or a telescope (even with filters or reducers). You won't get a
> second chance.

i was considering this one:

[https://www.celestron.com/products/eclipsmart-solar-
filter-6...](https://www.celestron.com/products/eclipsmart-solar-filter-6-sct)

bad idea?

~~~
hazeii
From a reputable company (like Celestron) it ought to be ok. However, if
anything goes wrong (filter burns through, cracks, drops out) the damage will
will likely be irreversible. Think of it as the risk of standing at the wrong
end of a loaded gun.

Even if you avoid looking directly at the sun, it's possible to make mistakes.
On a transit of Venus I was having trouble getting a telescope lined up, so
without thinking I bent down to have a look through it to see where the sun
was. Luckily the resultant burn made me whip my head back before my eye got to
the eyepiece.

------
angel_j
Just yesterday I was looking for ephemerides, and found JPL's Horizon, which
you can access with telnet:

telnet horizons.jpl.nasa.gov 6775

You can type names, to get numbers (mercury is 1).

------
njarboe
Weird how the top of this page says the transit is on November 11th, but the
side bar and main description section have it as November 12th. From the site
rococode linked to, it is November 11, but it is a bit strange for NASA to
have this wrong and inconsistent on its site. I hope to get a look tomorrow if
the sky is clear.

------
overcast
Figures, there's a giant snow storm passing through the Northeast today :(

~~~
mhb
Northeast what? Sunny where I am.

~~~
overcast
United States

------
angel_j
What effect will this event have on my mood, plans, and chance of success?

------
ChuckMcM
And the SpaceX Starlink launch happens 2 hours later at 9:35AM ET. An
interesting astrophotography opportunity to get a picture of both Mercury and
a zillion little satellites transiting the Sun.

------
starpilot
To get you warmed up:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Amh9uQNwWyA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Amh9uQNwWyA)

------
throwaway35784
Will a welding mask work?

~~~
ranger207
That's what I used for the transit of Venus, along with some binoculars. Make
sure the glass is dark enough of course.

~~~
chrisshroba
Please note that the welding mask needs to be put between the sun and the
binoculars, not between the binoculars and the eyes. Otherwise, so much light
from the sun will be focused by the binoculars that the welding mask will not
be nearly enough to counteract it, and severe eye damage is pretty much a
certainty.

Also, note that many astronomers will say that only filters that are rated for
solar use should be used, which a welding mask is not. So do this at your own
risk.

~~~
lightedman
Welding masks may not be rated for solar, but given that they block out the
insane amount of UVA-UVB generated by welding, and our atmosphere totally
kills UVC, you're good to go as long as you aren't relying upon the auto-
darkening ones.

------
leeoniya
thanks, chicago, for your near-permanent overcasts :(

don't have a solar filter for my 6SE anyways, but got some excellent saturn
and jupiter seeing this summer :)

