Sun streak ends! Whither Mercury?

All good streaks must come to an end, like Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak or Cal Ripken, Jr.’s consecutive games-played record of 2,632. This morning Seattle Astronomy‘s personal mark of successful astronomical observations of Sun-related events was snapped at a modest four when we failed to spot Mercury during its transit across the face of the Sun.

Conditions looked semi-hopeful shortly after
sunrise that we'd see the Mercury Transit.
Photo: Greg Scheiderer.

Hope of spotting Mercury remained alive until the bitter end. I arrived at Seattle’s Seacrest Park just before sunrise when the transit had already been under way and below our horizon for a couple of hours. We got a few glimpses of the Sun during the morning, most not enough to register even a glimmer of light through properly filtered optics.

Then came proof that Mother Nature can be cruel and sadistic, especially to those who would practice astronomy in Seattle. With the transit slated to end at about 10:04 a.m. PST, the clouds parted a bit at about 10:02, setting off a mad scramble to point, focus, and look. I thought I caught the barest edge of Mercury leaving the disk of the Sun, but I couldn’t be sure. There were lots of clouds in the view. The Sun was there but Mercury, true to his fleet-of-foot reputation, was gone. I count it as a nice try.

Not everyone who came to our viewing event was skunked. Seattle-based Associated Press photographer Elaine Thompson caught this shot during a brief clearing:

Mercury, a tiny dot just above the middle, transits the sun this morning as seen from partly cloudy Seattle. #MercuryTransit pic.twitter.com/P8Pm1I4vyo

— Elaine Thompson (@ElaineMThompson) November 11, 2019

It pays to be prepared! The day was not a total loss. Many folks enjoyed a look at the Mercury-free Sun after the transit, a nice woman named Liz brought some Top Pot donuts to share, and hanging around at the beach waiting to spot Mercury with some new friends was not a bad way to spend a Monday morning.

I’d successfully seen four recent Sun events: the August 2017 total eclipse of the Sun, the Mercury Transit in May 2016, a partial solar eclipse in 2014, and the transit of Venus in June 2012. Off to start a new streak.

There will not, however, be another Mercury transit until 2032, and not one visible from North America until 2049. See you down at Seacrest Park in thirty years!