Mercury Transit at Sunset

Weather forecast for 2019 November 11, the day of Mercury Transit was not good for western Turkey. There was a wide and thick cloud system that grew over Mediterranean and blew over us. I was checking out satellite images if there would be an opening that I could drive to, but it was dismal until half an hour after Mercury actually began its transit. Then the western edge of the cloud system got as close as 150 km, so I decided to try my chances. As soon as I left Bursa, western sky started to shine brighter. After a short 40-km drive, there was a 2-degree band of clear sky right above the horizon, so I decided to stop at a small hilltop by Lake Uluabat, near Eskikaraagaç, which also is affectionally known as Stork Village. The second picture shows a closer crop where the tiny dot of Mercury is more visible. I waited for the Sun to come down to the narrow clear band over the horizon. The full solar disk was visible for just 5 minutes. And the small black disk of Mercury was barely visible against the Sun, through a turbulent atmosphere. So I got this gloomy autumn sunset over Lake Uluabat with Mercury in transit.