Live from Vanderbilt Planetarium and Observatory: The Mercury Transit

Live from Vanderbilt Planetarium and Observatory: The Mercury Transit

NASA Photo

The Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum, 180 Little Neck Road, Centerport will offer a special half-hour presentation on the planet Mercury as it makes its transit across the sun at 11 a.m. on Monday, Nov. 11, Veterans Day, in the Charles and Helen Reichert Planetarium.

General admission (with no additional fee) will admit visitors to this program. As a salute and a thank-you, the Vanderbilt will give free admission to the museum and planetarium that day to all veterans and active-duty military personnel, and their families. This offer is good for Saturday through Monday, Nov. 9 to 11.

Amateur astronomer and space enthusiast Rob Unger, one of the planetarium’s command-console operators, will give a talk followed by safe viewing of the Mercury event – weather permitting – with solar telescopes in the Vanderbilt Observatory. 

Dave Bush, director of the Reichert Planetarium, said, “Planetarium staff will set up special solar-filtered telescopes so that all visitors can safely live view the transit of Mercury across the sun, starting at 11:30 a.m. right after the show, and continuing until 1 p.m. Be sure not to miss this event. Mercury will not cross the face of the sun again until the year 2032! Please arrive early to secure your seat for the presentation.”  

For more information, please call 631-854-5579 or visit www.vanderbiltmuseum.org.