ASTRONOMER Chris Baddiley, who lives in Mathon, near Malvern, defied cloudy skies to capture this picture of the transit of Mercury yesterday.

The transit occurred when Mercury, the planet closest to the sun, crossed the sun's disc on Monday.

The transit was not visible to the naked eye, but by using astronomical equipment with proper solar filters, Mr Baddiley was able to take this picture.

He said: "Despite cloud in the Malvern area, persistence paid off. We had just a few seconds' breaks in the cloud during the transit which went on from midday to early evening. I had a few visitors from the University of the Third Age and members of the astronomical society for company.

"Although Mercury orbits the sun in only 88 days, it has an inclined orbit with respect to the Earth round the Sun so it is only when it is very near to the intersection of its orbital plane with that of the Earth and the Earth is also lined up with that point, that we do actually get a transit. This is very infrequent. I last imaged it successfully in 2003."

The next transit will occur on November 11, 2019, and then on November 13, 2032.