Hasn't happened for the last three and a half years, and won't happen again for another 13 years, in 2032, so it really isn't all that common of a celestial event. To see the whole thing I would have needed to be a few thousand miles further east, east of the Mississippi River at least, or in South America which had a good view of the whole event. But alas, here in the Eastern Sierra, only a couple of hundred miles east of the west coast, all I got to see what the the second half, having risen above the horizon here within a few minutes of reaching the mid-sun position.
Still, I did get to see a little more than half of it, and other than thick low angle atmosphere and focus distortions from being near ground features early on, I did get a decent showing here.
Sun just breaking above the glacial moraine about a mile distant, which forms the morning horizon from my house this time of year, with solar filter off.
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First shot of whole sun with solar filter on, Mercury is micro-dot just below left of center, focus not crisp due to ground effect heat waves and thick atmosphere at this low of an angle.
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Mercury nearing solar disc center with much higher power of magnification, no edges of the sun are seen in this image, but only the edges of the eyepiece.
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Followed by a return to a more reasonable magnification showing the whole sun again.
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Then seen starting to near the edge of the sun.
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Finally bumping up against the suns rim and completing its transit.
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Just goes to show how incredibly large is our Sun, and how infinitesimally small are the planets ... and our Sun isn't even anything like a truly big star!