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Norm

Solar transit of Mercury

So I was in this carpark of a farmers shop in Chippenham........

November 11th 2019

On my way back to the car with my choice smoked bacon, I met a couple in a carpark with a spotting scope pointed the wrong way round at a loose piece of paper and the sun. Unusual I thought.

I like unusual and said, hey, what are you looking at? Turns out Mercury was transiting across the sun at that very moment, the clouds in the sky had cleared and they'd quickly set up to see Mercury pass across the Sun as a small dark spot. Where? I said and a finger was pointed.

Here's what we saw. It was quite exciting. In a trainspotting kind of way( not the film with Ewan McGregor)!!!!

Mercury transit

Can you see it?

Mercury transit closer

How about now?

Mercury transit with arrow

Look closely to the left of the arrow in the picture above. Make sure your screen is clean. See the small spot. That's Mercury. Woo hoooo.

It gives you some perspective. It's tiny relative to the Sun

Norman McGeoch 2019

rocketscientist.com.au

Starlink. Elon Musks global coverage satellites.

Elon is launching 12,000 satellites to provide global internet access. What could possibly go wrong? https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/05/elon-musk-starlink-internet-satellites-trouble-for-astronomy-light-pollution/ And no-ones even considered what you could do with with 12,000 satellites with phased grid antennas working together.  Like an array of radio-astronomy telescopes only as a targeted downlink signal.  Am I paranoid?  Time will tell. "Who knows which way the wind blows"

Smoking

Most rockets leave a nice smoke trail to follow. A Hybrid running on Nitrous Oxide and a polypropylene fuel grain is almost smokeless. This makes it difficult to track visually. Does anyone have thoughts on tracking smoke for a hybrid rocket motor?  At the launch at Thunad down Under to 26,220 AGL it disappeared pretty quickly once launched from the pad.