Live monitoring of Mercury's transit by the Institute of Cosmos Sciences
On May 9 people in Catalonia will witness Mercuryʼs transit across the Sun. This is a phenomenon of great interest and beauty when it comes to astronomy, albeit a discrete one. It will start at noon and it will end with the sunset. It is also important to bear in mind that we must not look straight at the Sun without the convenient tools to ensure safe solar viewing.
On May 9 people in Catalonia will witness Mercuryʼs transit across the Sun. This is a phenomenon of great interest and beauty when it comes to astronomy, albeit a discrete one. It will start at noon and it will end with the sunset. It is also important to bear in mind that we must not look straight at the Sun without the convenient tools to ensure safe solar viewing.
The Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB, IEEC-UB) and the Department of Quantum Physics and Astrophysics of the UB will stream the natural event online and will organize several activities on the street in order to monitor the planetʼs transit.
The ICCUBʼs streaming will be done in ServiAstroʼs website and it will start at 13.12h (local time) up to its end at 20.42h. In addition, there will be two telescopes in front of Palau Reial in Avinguda Diagonal in order to provide its observation.
It will be possible to see the planetʼs transit from all parts of the world where there is daylight. In some places it will be fully or partially seen depending on the sunʼs position when the transit takes place.
Due to Mercuryʼs small size, the event cannot be observed without the suitably equipped telescope. The best way to watch the event is by projecting the sunʼs image on a white screen through a telescope. This way of following the planetʼs crossing offers the advantage of a simultaneous observation to a group of people.
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