I am glad so many people could watch the Mercury transit yesterday, with SDO and from the ground. People around the world were watching the transit along with SDO! Here is my favorite view of the transit. An AIA 193 movie of Mercury passing over a small but active prominence as it moves off the disk of the Sun. The mp4 movies of the transit will be archived at http://mercurytransit.gsfc.nasa.gov, so you can look at the phases and wavelengths you missed the first time.
Many thanks to the people at Stanford University who got up at 3:00 am PT to start the scripts to provide the SDO data. My thanks also to the people at the Goddard Space Flight Center who worked all morning to keep the data flowing and help with the network configuration.
Now I can relax and start looking forward to the next transit of Mercury on November 11, 2019. But first you should watch for the Great American Eclipse, a total eclipse of the Sun on August 21, 2017. The path of totality of this eclipse spans the continental US, so it can be seen by almost everyone in the USA who can drive a few hundred miles or less. SDO won't see this eclipse and I will just be another person jostling for position at some place along the path!
