Mercury 9/7/07

Hi, Mercury's one tough target, this shot was taken through early afternoon heat on the seventh of September, 2007. Diameter: just 5.3"! It sort of looks like the Moon only 500 times farther away or 118 million miles when this image was captured. Thanks for viewing, Dan

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Dan, great Mercury shot! According to calsky.com, the transit ocurred at 1:59pm on 9/7 at approx 47deg in altitude. All this time, I have been trying to image the planet in the 12-15deg ranges at dawn, ending up a ton of atmospheric seeing noise. Did you first pick up Mercury early in the morning or were you able to slew directly to it in the afternoon?

Regards.
Steve

Hi Dan, I've reprocessed your shot even more radically but without knocking the phase down too much (see the included Starry Night Pro phase for comparison. If a side of Mercury is showing that hasn't been mapped yet, then obviously Starry night cannot represent those surface features. Does anybody know of a program that permits us to see what Mercury surface features are apparent for a given time?) The attached one now more clearly shows what those weird striations were on the bottom of my last attempt. I hope you don't mind me fiddling around with your excellent shot.

Regards, Jason H.

Dan Petersen said:

Hi, Mercury's one tough target, this shot was taken through early afternoon heat on the seventh of September, 2007. Diameter: just 5.3"! It sort of looks like the Moon only 500 times farther away or 118 million miles when this image was captured. Thanks for viewing, Dan

Attached Image: