DEPARTAMENT
D'ASTRONOMIA I METEOROLOGIA

DETAILS OF THE TRANSIT

The figure below shows the position of Mercury during the transit in 15 minute intervals. North in the image represents the celestial North Pole direction. Geocentric contacts refer to an observer located at the center of the Earth.

Times of geocentric contacts
Contact
Time (UT)
I
5:12:56
II
5:17:24
Maximum
7:52:23
III
10:27:19
IV
10:31:46

The transit will be visible during all of its phases from across Europe and, in particular, continental Spain. The areas located towards the West of the Iberian Peninsula will miss the first contact of Mercury with the Sun. The height of the Sun above the horizon at first contact will be below 5 degrees in all of the Spanish territory. The total duration of the transit will be slightly over 5 hours and 20 minutes.

Contact times for some Spanish cities

City
I
 Alt
II
Max
 Alt
III
IV
 Alt
Distance
Barcelona
5:11:48
4
5:16:14
7:52:48
 34
10:28:23
10:32:47
60
703.0
Bilbo
5:11:41
1
5:16:06
7:52:50
30
10:28:33
10:32:57
56
702.6
Córdoba
...........
...
...........
7:52:58
29
10:28:35
10:32:59
59
702.1
Girona
5:11:47
5
5:16:13
7:52:47
34
10:28:22
10:32:46
60
702.9
Granada
...........
...
...........
7:52:58
30
10:28:32
10:32:57
60
703.0
Lleida
5:11:47
3
5:16:12
7:52:49
33
10:28:26
10:32:50
59
702.9
Madrid
...........
...
5:16:12
7:52:54
30
10:28:34
10:32:58
58
702.8
Málaga
...........
...
...........
7:52:59
29
10:28:34
10:32:58
60
703.0
Palma de Mallorca
5:11:53
4
5:16:18
7:52:50
35
10:28:21
10:32:46
62
703.1
San Fernando
...........
...
...........
7:53:00
28
10:28:38
10:33:02
59
702.9
Santa Cruz de Tenerife
...........
...
...........
7:53:17
19
10:28:55
10:33:20
54
703.0
Santiago de Compostela
...........
...
...........
7:52:54
26
10:28:42
10:33:07
54
702.5
Soria
5:11:44
1
5:16:10
7:52:51
31
10:28:32
10:32:56
58
702.7
Tarragona
5:11:48
3
5:16:14
7:52:49
33
10:28:25
10:32:49
60
702.9
València
5:11:51
2
5:16:16
7:52:53
32
10:28:27
10:32:52
60
703.0
Zaragoza
5:11:46
2
5:16:11
7:52:50
32
10:28:29
10:32:53
59
702.8

Contact I: Start of transit. The planet's disc is externally tangent to the Sun's disc.
Contact II: The planet's disc is internally tangent to the Sun's disc
Maximum: Moment of time at which the center of the planets is closest to the center of the Sun
Contact III: The planet's disc, at the opposite side of the solar limb than Contact II, is again internally tangent to the Sun's disc
Contact IV: End of transit. The planet's disc is externally tangent to the Sun's disc.

Altitude (Alt): Altitude of the Sun above the horizon (in degrees)
Distance : Angular distance between the center of the planet and the center of the Sun at the maximum of the transit (in arcseconds)

The position angle (angle between the celestial North Pole and the point of contact, measured counterclockwise) is of 16 degrees for the first contact and 291 degrees for the last contact. These angles do not change significantly for the cities listed in the table.
 


All times are in Universal Time (UT), which is equivalent to GMT (add 2 hours to obtain daylight savings Central European Time)

Visibility map
(From http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/transit/transit.html
F. Espenak, NASA/GSFC)

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