Transit of Mercury November 15, 1999

The November transit was grazing, so Mercury's disk never got more than 5 arc seconds inside the solar edge, as seen from San Francisco.  For reference, Mercury's disk was 9.9" at transit time.  I set the telescope drive on sidereal and not solar rate; as a result, I couldn't make a mosaic that showed Mercury's path across the solar disk more clearly. Mercury's disk in these prime focus images was about 3 mm.