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 almost 2.5 hours! Images from the telescope at ESO and other places are now coming at a regular rate. The one from ESO 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.

The load on the ESO website has been mounting steeply this morning and we have had about 600,000 hits so far (about 10,000 every 5 minutes) Sorry, but 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.