The transit of Venus

[OjnoTheRed]

At my kids' school, two parent volunteers set up their telescopes for the children to look at the transit of Venus (including safety for looking at the sun).

These pictures show the transit of Venus itself, and a wider shot of the set-up used; very simple, very effective. Pictures only taken with my mobile camera, so not fantastic quality but you can see Venus in the top right-hand quadrant of the Sun in the first photo.

It's fantastic that the kids had the opportunity to view this first-hand; an authentic experience, and they have both been calculating how hold we'll all be when the next transit happens.


06062012049 by jonoreita, on Flickr


06062012048 by jonoreita, on Flickr

 

[PFVA63]

Hi

Neat. Thanks for sharing.

Pat

 

[saundby]

We got a chance to enjoy the transit, too.

Pics and an account.

It was pretty neat. Venus was larger against the Sun than I expected, in part from seeing Mercury before, in part from drawings of the transit that I've seen from the early observations of it. It was also a far steadier and sharper-edged circle than I expected.

The most impressive view for me was looking directly at the Sun with filter glasses. It was a far more visceral experience than any of the telescope views.

 

[OjnoTheRed]

Nice article! The direct observation through filtered glasses sounds amazing, and I like the binoculars set-up.

I, too, was surprised by how clearly and sharply Venus stood out in front of the Sun.

 

[saundby]

Thanks!

Glad you got a chance to see it, too.

We just got our official NASA certificates of achievement for answering the Venus Transit Challenge in the mail today. In other words, we wrote down our names on a list of attendees at the site where our astronomy buddies were set up.

We don't have any solar scopes right now, so we just set up our scopes at the night time events. Though I'm thinking of making an unsilvered 150mm mirror and putting it in a tube with a Herschel wedge...