Mercury rising
In the footsteps of James Cook, Kiwis watched the transit of the Sun’s closest neighbour from the bay named in the planet’s honour
Stargazers gathered at Te Whanganui o Hei, or Mercury Bay, yesterday for a brief glimpse of a rare astronomic event.
The transit of Mercury across the Sun was visible around New Zealand. The planetary phenomenon happens about 13 times a century.
Spectators at Mercury Bay saw the last hour of its transit.
Otago Museum director Ian Griffin, who was among those watching, said the location was significant because Mercury Bay got its European name when explorer James Cook berthed there in 1769 so astronomer Charles Green could observe the event.
“That particular observation was the very first time, I think, telescopes were used in New Zealand and very interestingly we see it 250 years later,” Griffin told Morning Report.
“But through a completely coincidental complexity of maths and resonance, there’s going to be another transit of Mercury on the 500 anniversary in 2269, so it’s kind of marking the pulses of the first contact between Pakeha and Maori.”
He said this was an opportunity to reflect on the past, and seeing the many different members of community at the beach today made him wonder about the future and communities working together for the next 250 years.
Griffin said the group had telescopes on-site — courtesy of a grant from a Tuia 250 programme — since the transit is not visible to the naked eye.
He said he was ecstatic after the viewing , in which he reckons about more than 100 people turned up.
“We could see prominences on the Sun, which Cook and Green could never have seen, because my understanding is that their telescopes were protected by basically hot candle wax darkening on a piece of glass to protect the eyes, we were much safer but we could see a lot of detail.”
The next time a transit of Mercury will be visible from New Zealand is 2039, “so you’ll have a wee time to wait”, Griffin said.