[JAPANESE]
"Transit of Mercury" is a very rare phenomenon that the inferior conjunction of Earth and Mercury, one of the inferior planets, occurs and Mercury transit the Sun slowly over 5 hours. Transit of Mercury occurs only in May or November because the orbit of Mercury is inclined 7 degrees to that of Earth. The last transit of Mercury occured on November 16, 1999 and the transit in May is the first time in 33 years. The next transit of Mercury will occur in 2006.


JST (Tokyo) UT
Contact I
The limb of Mercury is externally tangent with the Sun		 14:11:40 05:11:40
Contact II
The limb of Mercury is internally tangent with the Sun		 14:16:06 05:16:06
Sunset 18:31:54
Contact III
The outer limb of Mercury reaches the opposite limb of the Sun		 Cannot observe due to the sunset
Contact IV
The limb of Mercury is externally tangent with the Sun		 Cannot observe due to the sunset


Live Streaming ENDED
Enjoy REC MOVIE

To watch the transit of Mercury, QuickTime plug-in is necessary.

Observation points

  • Katsushika City Museum
    (Katsushika, Tokyo)
  • Hoshi no Gakkou Observatory
    (Ebina, Kanagawa)
  • Bisei Observatory
    (Bisei, Okayama)

May 7 REC MOVIE Open(18:30JT)
May 7 LIVE ENDED(18:00 JT)
May 7 LIVE START(14:00 JT)
April 30 Official Web page open