Mercury Transit

This app showed how Mercury transited across the face of the Sun with images from two telescopes in real time, every 30s. NEW Videos of the transit available! Watch them NOW!
On Monday, 9th May 2016, Mercury passed across the face of the Sun for the first time since 2006.

Two expeditions were organized to observe this unique event from two distant locations on Earth and acquire images to be transmitted worldwide:
- Cerro Paranal, in the Andes range, Chile, at the European Southern Observatory ESO.
- Madrid, Spain, at the European Space Astronomy Center ESAC.

Observations are made using a Celestron CGEM mount and two telescopes: a Coronado Solarmax II 90, in H-alpha spectral range, and a Bresser AR-102, in white-light spectral range. The images are taken every 30 seconds approximately.

The activity is part of the CESAR programme (Cooperation through Education in Science and Astronomy Research), a joint educational and scientific programme developed by the European Space Agency (ESA), the Spanish National Institute for Aerospace Technology (INTA) and the company ISDEFE, conceived as a link between astronomy research and the education community.