UO faculty and students tracked the transit of Mercury across the sun from Allan Price Science Commons & Research Library — a cosmic event, as of Monday morning, that will not be seen again until 2032.
Despite the overcast skies, senior librarian Dean Walton was hopeful. “If you can see the disk of the sun,” he said, the planet can be “resolved,” or be found and photographed. Walton’s telephoto lens was able to capture high quality images during the Venus transit in 2012 and the 2017 solar eclipse.
“It’s very cool,” Walton said.
The concern with streaming the transit, according to Walton, is the lack of HD quality. “It’s a bigger challenge,” he said, even with high powered telescopes transmitting the images.
But things were brewing outside the science complex — two Newtonian reflector telescopes, with sun filters, pointed towards the sky. Accompanying them was Senior Economics Instructor Mike Urbancic, a telescope hobbyist. “It’s one of my favorite things to do,” Urbancic said. He said he is passionate about the way people “light up” when they see phenomena, like rings of Saturn, for the first time.
“It’s an incredible thing, astronomy,” UO physics student Ian Sherman said. “It brings the world together in ways you might not expect.”
It’s because of the different planes that planets exist on, Urbancic explained, that events like this don’t happen every year. Venus, which performed a transit in 2012, “will not happen again until 2117.” As for Mercury, there will be a 13-year wait before another transit will occur — “November 2032,” Urbancic said.
On average, Sherman said, there will be “12 or 13 transits in a 100 year period.”
The group planned to stay until 10 a.m. They watched the clouds intensely, hoping for a brief break in the clouds. Briefly, the sun would peek through, and the group would spring into action, adjusting the telescopes to try to find both the sun and Mercury. Usually, within moments, the sun would disappear again, and they would return to their waiting game.
In the final moments, the sun appeared. Walton, with a DSLR camera and telephoto lens, attempted to capture an image, while Urbancic and students tried to narrow in with the telescopes.
The EMU bell rang for 10 a.m. with no clear image of Mercury. “At least we got the sun, though — it’s better than nothing,” Urbancic said. “It’s a good faith effort.”
Walton believed in the importance of scientific engagement, like using telescopes to spot transits, or viewing eclipses. “It’s how the universe works,” he explained. “It enlightens us, and helps us develop tools to explore the universe more.”
“It doesn’t happen all the time,” Walton said.
