To the telescope!

[bedraggled]

Mercury is passing in front of the sun for the next 7 hours, until 2PM New York time  There are the usual warnings to not look at the sun.

[stuper1]

Bedraggled, what kind of telescope(s) do you have?

I have a few, but little time to use them.  As for today's Mercury transit, it is cloudy here right now.  Astronomy can be a bit frustrating, because it seems that the weather doesn't cooperate very often.

[dualstow]

White skies here, too. Darn it I can't see diddly squat.

[bedraggled]

gave my telescope away 3 years ago.  Frustrating this morning.

I stared at the sun for a few seconds, though.  I can still see this afternoon.  Who would have imagined?

[Tortoise]

It's been an interesting year in astronomy so far: Pluto fly-by, flowing water on Mars, landing a probe on a comet, inexplicable objects orbiting a faraway star (the so-called "alien megastructures"), and recently the discovery of Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone of a nearby star that's dim enough that we'll be able to analyze their atmospheric composition within a few years.