Mercury viewed from BBCC

MOSES LAKE — The small object in the telescope is barely visible. It moves across the lens with the sun as a backdrop, roughly 60 million miles from Earth.

"It's very small compared to the sun," Big Bend Community College student Kim Christensen said. "Very small indeed."

Students at Big Bend Community College in Moses Lake got a chance to view Mercury traveling across the sun Wednesday afternoon, an event that happens 13 times in a century. The next time it happens is 2016.

Only people in the Western hemisphere were able to see the event, so those living in Europe missed the opportunity. In Washington, it was visible for about five hours. Residents on the East coast may have been able to view it for just two hours.

"I'm glad I got to see it now, instead of when I was 36," freshman Princess Rippy said.

Since the planet is too small to see with the naked eye, astronomy instructor Jim Hamm brought out the college's high-powered telescope, with a solar filter allowing just a fraction of the sun's light to shine through.

Freshman Tyrell Pickett called the viewing once-in-a-lifetime.

"How often do they have telescopes just sitting out?" Pickett asked.

Japanese exchange student Makoto Kano said Wednesday may have been his luckiest day since coming to the United States four months ago.

"Something will happen to me," joked Kano.