by Ralph Marantino

In 1994 I journeyed to the lighthouse at the Atlantic Highlands. In the dark I set up three optical units. First a Tele Vue Genesis SDF 101mm refractor with a Thousand Oaks glass white light solar filter. I soon followed with two Coronado Solar refractors a double stacked 40mm PST @ .5 Angstroms and a 70 mm Calcium K line telescope. I set up all of the telescopes to observe at 45X a perfect field of view. The sky was clear all day and I observed the entire transit.

I drove down to Columbia South Carolina for the past total Solar eclipse and was clouded out at the last fifteen minutes, enough said about that.

This past Monday I set up the Tele Vue refractor on my front lawn and gave the entire block and some children waiting for the school bus a good look at the transit of Mercury across the solar disk. I agree with Meatloaf that Two out of three ain’t bad.

I am ready to trade Tele Vue Bino Vue with Barlow and two 25mm Plossl eyepieces for either Tele Vue 41mm Panoptic or Tele Vue 31mm Nagler type 5 for my next transit. Anyone?