Viewers See Mercury Pass In Front of Sun

Ed Yeates ReportingPeople went outside today to see the Mercury Transit. It's not a train or a bus, but an event 63-million miles away, and it's still going on. It ended at about 4:30 this afternoon and you'll see it no more for another nine and a half years.

That's why folks were doing it earlier this afternoon, looking through specially fitted telescopes, compliments of Clark Planetarium.

Wolf Padwer, Eight Years Old: "It's this little dot on the side of the sun. It's right under a small sun spot."

Like Wolf at Gateway and the Salt Lake Astronomical Society in Midvale, a lot of people were watching the planet Mercury pass in front of the sun, an event you won't see again until 2016.

Don't get confused with sunspots it's the little dot the size of all of North America that is Mercury.

Patrick Wiggins, Salt Lake Astronomical Society: "Last week at this time we really thought it would be lousy weather, but nope, we've easily got Mercury visible in all ofthese telescopes here today."

Wolf Padwer: "I've never seen a transit of a planet before. It's really cool."

All of the telescopes were fitted with special filters since even looking at the sun through the eyepiece without a filter could cause instant, permanent damage to the eye.

Seth Jarvis, Clark Planetarium: "You need at least welder's goggles, grade 14 before you can do this. Smoking a glass with candle soot, that's not enought. Putting on two pairs of sunglasses, that's not good enough."

But back to Wolf, who liked to talk a lot to us about this event.

Wolf Padwer: "Just yesterday my mom bought a telescope. My mom bought a telescope. My dad was trying to put it together this morning. He had no idea how to do it."

I guess that's why Wolf went to the Clark Planetarium today.

Wolf Padwer: "This is really cool, I really wanted to see this."

Wolf said he skipped school today so he could see the Mecury Transit, but then again, he told us, my whole class knew about it.

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