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Students, faculty, staff, and the public are invited to join Michael Stark, assistant professor of physics, and David Hogenboom, professor emeritus of physics, at 3 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 8 on March Field to safely view the transit of Mercury.
The professors will be setting up two telescopes in order to view the solar event, which last occurred in 2003 and won’t happen again until 2016.
Mercury orbits the sun every 88 days. Each time it does this it passes between the sun and the Earth, but usually passes just north or south of the sun (as seen from Earth). On Nov. 8, however, it will travel across the solar disk and can be viewed as a small black dot on the sun. Since the sun is more than 300 times the size of Mercury, it will be a very small black dot and will not be noticeable without the aid of a telescope.
“Mercury is a very difficult planet to observe because it orbits very near the sun. Observing it directly is usually only possible just after sunset or just before sunrise on certain days when it is at the extreme parts of its orbits,” says Stark. “Most people have never seen Mercury and observing it in transit is one of the rare opportunities when observing it will be easy if you have the right equipment. These transits occur very infrequently, so observing them is a rare opportunity in itself.”
While Stark encourages everyone to experience the transit of Mercury, he does offer some words of caution.
“It is very unlikely that you could view this event safely on your own,” he says. “While you could use a pair of binoculars or a telescope to project the sun’s light onto a screen, it is somewhat tricky and could damage the equipment and, potentially, cause permanent damage to your eyes. Professor Hogenboom and I will be using telescopes equipped with special filters that make viewing the sun much safer.”
In the past, Stark and Hogenboom have also led the campus in viewing both Mars and Venus.