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To: American Number 181269513
though Mercury will be faintest early in the month and thus trickiest to spot without binoculars.

Mercury is close to the sun, so to look at it with binoculars you have to look towards the sun with those binoculars.

This is not a safe suggestion to say the least.

5 posted on 06/03/2022 2:10:10 PM PDT by qam1 (There's been a huge party. All plates and the bottles are empty, all that's left is the bill to pay)
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To: qam1; SunkenCiv; Red Badger; Liz

Consider the required time (right before dawn through a minutes after dawn), the low angle of the sun, and the small 1/2 of one degree angle of the sun’s disk.

Small risk of passing the telescope through the sun’s disk. Present, but a small risk AR 39 atmospheres optical thickness.


8 posted on 06/03/2022 2:15:14 PM PDT by Robert A Cook PE (Method, motive, and opportunity: No morals, shear madness and hatred by those who cheat.)
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To: qam1

I think they mean do it before sunrise when the sky is getting light. I’ve seen Venus with binoculars during the daytime but have never tried to see Mercury that way.


12 posted on 06/03/2022 2:33:51 PM PDT by KarlInOhio (If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference of the Devil...-Churchill)
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To: qam1

Mercury is the toughest of the naked eye planets (with the exception of Uranus which is just on the very edge of naked-eye visibility. Early morning right before sunrise or early evening right after sunset are the best times to try and catch it.

A transit of mercury across the sun is another way to see it, but the next one is in 2032.


14 posted on 06/03/2022 2:35:49 PM PDT by hanamizu
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