DO NOT FORGET THAT IT IS DANGEROUS TO OBSERVE THE SUN WITHOUT SPECIAL PROTECTION! The only completely safe way is to project an image of the sun on a white surface (for instance, a piece of paper or cardboard).

The transit is underway since a little above 1 hour! Mercury is now about 2.3 arcmin inside the solar disk. Images from the telescope at ESO are now coming at a regular rate and may be seen via the webcam Mercury is well visible as a small black spot at the upper right on the solar disk. Please note that the solar image is reversed by the telescope optics - this is why Mercury is moving from right to left in these images. The images are updated every 1 minute in principle. Note that a small sunspot is visible to the lower left of Mercury's disk - it will be interesting to see how close Mercury will "pass by"!

The load on the ESO website has been mounting during the past half hour. Although it is not (yet) critical, it may well be that you will need a little patience to see the images.

Here is a collection of recent images obtained in different places.