re: #60 Nojay UK

If you want to practice, there’s a transit of Mercury happening on Sunday 8th May. It’s not naked-eye visible but a projection from a reasonable-sized telescope will show it. Obvious warnings — don’t try and look at it directly with binoculars etc.

I’ll be trying to take pictures as I did with the near-total eclipse in April 2015, using a welder’s helmet glass filter positioned in front of a cheap superzoom digital camera. I’ll post what I get although the weather forecast is for cloud early on in the day.

I caught the one in 2011 in China, and luckily had halfway decent weather at my location. I wanted to go to Indonesia for the one in March, but our winter vacation had just ended and I’d already spent a month in Malaysia. So I passed on that one.

But I will be in the States for the 2017 eclipse. I think my son in Denver might be persuaded to take a roadtrip to Wyoming for that one. I observed the 1979 eclipse from my boss’ airplane somewhere over North Dakota, saw a partial in 1991 and barely remember seeing the one in the 1960s with my next door neighbor and his dad. So, that’ll make four US eclipses for me.