Don't forget to watch the transit of Mercury on any one of the web-based live space channels. It's already started and will last about 7 hours.
Go here to see it: https://tools.cosmos.esa.int/cesar/
Public Service Announcement: unless you are really spectacularly stupid, you should know not to look directly at the sun with binoculars or a telescope. Obviously Mercury is tiny and you cannot see it against the brightness of the sun, so unless you have special goggles that allow direct-sun viewing, the only way to watch it is on the web where they do have special cameras for sun viewing.
For the much rarer transit of Venus a couple of years ago, I simply held a pair of binoculars such that the image was projected on a sheet of paper. A small telescope would work as well.
ReplyDeleteThat would probably work for Mercury if you could hold the target surface at the right distance for good focus.
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