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For a moment, the loitering grid of Rogue Valley Monday morning clouds shifted, and the sun shimmered into focus. North Medford High School senior Sammie Mackie, 18, made her move right away, pressing her eye against a telescope's viewfinder — fitted, of course, with a specialized solar filter — to see whether she could catch a particular sight in the scope before the clouds smudged her view a second time. She could see it, a pinprick of dark silhouetted against the star like a dust mote dancing past a spotlight: Mercury, the planet closest to our sun, in the midst of a transit that cut directly through the star's rays.  "I just find it really interesting," Mackie said. "Because when you think of space, you think of everything as so far away, which it is, but you can still see them in such clarity with the telescopes." Mackie and three other North Medford students joined astronomy teacher Robert Black, astral photographer John Bunyan and Dave Bloomsness of Southern Skywatchers at the school's observatory for the event. Plenty of eyes across the globe joined them , peering through telescopes or gazing at monitors as the transit — an event that happens about 13 times every century — unfolded.  "Although Mercury zooms around the sun every 88 days, Earth, the sun and Mercury rarely align," a statement on the NASA website reads. "And because Mercury orbits in a plane that is tilted from Earth’s orbit, it usually moves above or below our line of sight to the sun." From our neck of the woods, the event could be viewed between about 7:57 and 11:42 a.m. Clouds obstructed the view for a bit, but eventually sunshine broke through and stayed. The only remaining "obstruction" was the moon-sized planet as it meandered past. "It's something we teach every year in astronomy class. You talk about transits of Mercury and Venus, and hey, we're seeing it today," Black said. "It's a way to get their hands on the equipment, use some of this technology. Pretty exciting to see all of these kids volunteer." Historically, the timing of Mercury and Venus transits was used to figure out the 93 million-mile distance between the Earth and the sun, Black added. Student Jordan Davis, 17, who snapped pictures on a camera hooked into the telescope during the event, said they'll be part of the portfolio of images he plans to submit for his senior project.  "It's nice. It paid off, waiting," he said, grinning. Ruby Johnson, 17, was equally impressed, saying the sight was a lesson in perspective. "To me it's really humbling, because Mercury, it isn't actually that much smaller than Earth, relative to the other planets," Johnson said. "So to think about, 'If that's how small Mercury looks on the sun, then how small would we look on the sun?' That thought, I think, just really makes you feel small." Other students said they were impressed to see it, period, and that it brought the planet to life in a way that learning about it in a classroom can't. "It's just really great to be able to see something that you've only ever thought about or seen pictures of," said Abby Santiago, 17. "It's really cool to actually be able to see that and know that it's there." Reach reporter Ryan Pfeil at 541-776-4468 or [email protected] . Follow him at www.twitter.com/ryanpfeil . null