Contains:  Solar system body or event
Mercury 8 days after greatest eastern elongation (12/29/2022), DoubleStarPhotography

Mercury 8 days after greatest eastern elongation (12/29/2022)

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging
Mercury 8 days after greatest eastern elongation (12/29/2022), DoubleStarPhotography

Mercury 8 days after greatest eastern elongation (12/29/2022)

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging

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Description

This shot of Mercury at just 8.46” in diameter was taken in daylight the same afternoon as the shot of the sun on 12/29 posted, but later in the day and I think seeing had started to degrade a bit between the shots.

This image was captured through my TEC140 with stacked barlows (4x Televue & 2x Televue) , taking the TEC from it's native 980FL to 7840FL.  I also used a near IR pass filter (let's only the deep red ~685nm light and longer wavelengths through) in an attempt to balance out the dancing and scattering affects of the atmosphere.....hence the reddish tint to the image which I chose to leave vs. zapping out by zeroing the saturation.

The filter worked to a degree and did make a significant improvement, but a much steadier sky is needed to get a crisper image and the hopes of some sort of actual detail on the disk.

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