The next Mercury transit is fast approaching. Mercury will transit (or pass in front of the Sun) as seen from Earth on Monday, November 11, 2019. The last time this happened was three years ago in 2016. If you miss it in 2019 you’ll have to wait 13 years until the next transit in 2032.

Mercury is very small compared to the Sun. The small speck to the right of center in the image above is Mercury. The other speck to the left is a sunspot. You could line up 194 Mercuries across the face of the Sun. Since it’s small you will need a telescope and an approved solar filter in order to view this event. Warning: NEVER look at the Sun without proper eye protection or you will permanently damage your eyes. NEVER look through a telescope at the Sun unless you are certain you have a “visual grade solar filter” on the telescope.

I have imaged the past two Mercury transits. One in 2006 and the other ten years later in 2016. The images of both of those transits are posted on this site. You can use the menu at left under astrophotography or simply click the ‘year links’ above to be taken to that year’s transit images.

As the diagram above reveals the transit will be in progress for 2/3’s of the U.S. when the Sun rises on Monday, November 11, 2019. This means that if you fall into that 2/3’s you will want to be setup and ready to go at sunrise and have a good unobstructed view of the eastern horizon in order to observe the transit.

Sunrise for the Dallas/Fort Worth area on transit day, Nov. 11, 2019 occurs at 6:53 a.m. with the point of “greatest transit” occurring at 9:20 a.m. and finally Mercury will complete its solar journey and move off the limb of the Sun at 12:04 p.m. in time to grab a sandwich for lunch. Don’t live in the DFW area? No problem. Check here to find transit times for your location.

Don’t have a telescope? Check your local astronomy and science related outlets like club’s and museums for events near you. Their web sites and calendars should start to have posted events where telescopes will be set up for the public to view the transit. I will post some local events here on my blog’s calendar as we get closer to the date.

Do you have a solar filter? If not, and you want to shoot the transit, now is the time to order a filter for your telescope. There are good filters and bad or inadequate filters out there. Please do your research and ensure that you get the right one for your needs. Check out this solar filter safety article from Sky & Telescope. It outlines how the eyes can be damaged, the safety provided in using a solar filter, and acceptable and unacceptable filters to give you an idea of what to look for when purchasing one.

The weather is a huge factor as always but since the transit as a whole lasts several hours, unless you are totally socked in, you should have breaks in the clouds to get to view at least some of the transit.

Here are some helpful links for the Mercury Transit of 2019.

http://www.eclipsewise.com/oh/tm2019.html
http://www.eclipsewise.com/oh/oh-tables/tm2019-Tab03.pdf
https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/transit/2019-november-11
https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/transit/transit.html