![]() ![]() The event starts the previous night at 8pm for an all-night star party culminating with a view of the transit through professional telescopes at sunrise. The planet Mercury is seen in silhouette, low center, as it transits across the face of the Sun, Monday, Nov. A series of images taken by two satellites flying past Mercury captured multiple 'tectonic and volcanic curiosities' as well as an impact crater on the planet. That's the exact spot Charles Green, an astronomer who arrived in New Zealand on Captain Cook’s first voyage, pointed a telescope skywards to observe a rare transit of Mercury almost exactly 250 years ago. Only the last hour of the transit is visible from New Zealand just after sunrise on Tuesday, November 12, but that's not stopping Otago Museum and both the Mercury Bay and Auckland Astronomical Societies hosting a very special "Mercury Rising" free public viewing event on Cooks Beach in the town of Whitianga in the aptly-named Mercury Bay in New Zealand. Swinging low Observers able to get out right after sunset and with a clear view of the western horizon can catch Mercury below Venus and the Moon Sept. there are also dozens of public observing events being planned. The tiny planet Mercury scooted across the suns face today (Nov. there are lots of astronomy club events planned, with many museums also planning big observing events for the public including one at Caltech in Pasadena, California. Europe's Mercury-bound probe BepiColombo made its third close flyby of its target planet on Monday (June 19), revealing a surface riddled with craters, including one that just received a name. If you want to see and experience the event with your own eyes-and meet others who have a similar interest in nature-a public viewing event with large telescopes is the best choice. It is also an outstanding introduction to deep-sky viewing for novice observers. ![]()
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