From Frank J MELILLO
® . . . . . . . .Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2003 13:34:06 -0400
Subject: Re: [ALPO_Mercury] Mercury on september 25, 2003
Christophe - Wow!
Excellent Shots! Mercury is almost like looking at Venus!
Lately, you have done such a great job imaging the planets. Before, I
was hoping that you would imaging Mercury too. This is
the best week to take more good shots while Mercury is displaying from half to
gibbous. At this phase, Mercury exposes much of the disk while it is still
relatively large and quite bright at -0.5 to -1.0 magnitude!
I wish everyone here will spend sometime observing Mercury visually and make a
drawing as best as possible!
The weather sounds good for
I will take a closer look at your images
when this apparition is over. Please, keep it up!
® . .
. . . . . .Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2003 14:59:44 EDT
Subject:
Mercury on september 25,
2003
Dear all -
This morning, I had an excellent
view of Mercury. (I mean excellent!). I imaged it under a nearly perfect seeing
condition.
http://hometown.aol.com/frankj12/mercuryindex.html
I used a Wr. #25
red filter to cut the blue light against the background. Mercury was taken in
broad daylight just half an hour before the local meridian at nearly 55 degrees
above the southern horizon. Just beautiful! Mercury was showing a slight darkening
just south of equator. They are well known features Solitudos
Martis and Jovis. I have combined two images at 0.02 sec.
exposure at f/25 to produce this image.
I hope some of you will have a chance to
view Mercury during this excellent morning apparition.
Frank
J MELILLO (Holtville, NY, USA)
ALPO
Mercury Coordinator