Rare Venus Transit

[Charles Pegge]

Your last chance to witness this astronomical event :)

http://www.transitofvenus.org/

[kryton9]

Although it was raining on and off all day here and cloudy. I still drove to a nice place to look, but the clouds didn't cooperate. Will have to watch video clips on youtube later. Did you see it?

[Charles Pegge]

Very limited visibility on the West Wales coast this morning. Dinas head is barely visible four miles away.

Nice pics on the web:


http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/6/6/1338939165112/Venus-transiting-the-sun--008.jpg


http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jun/05/transit-of-venus-live-coverage (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jun/05/transit-of-venus-live-coverage)

[Petr Schreiber]

It was very nice, I woke up at 4:30 AM to watch it, my eyes are bleeding and I got my head hit by window "doors" at the attic... but it was worth it.

I took the photo with 300mm lens, using ... ehm ... very professional filter ;)


Petr

[matthew]

The weather here has been quite depressing for the past few days so I didn't get to see it. :-P

Hey Petr that high-quality filter looks suspiciously like a cardboard CD case with a piece of mylar inside. :-)

[kryton9]

Very nice photo Petr. Thanks for sharing it.

What is in the cutout for your filter, mylar as Matthew suggested?

[Petr Schreiber]

It is not the mylar (although it definitely looks like that), but it is special "astro solar filter". More about it can be read here:
http://www.backyard-astro.com/equipment/filters/baader.html

The cost in my country is about $27 for A4 sheet. The paper thing around really is CD sheet :p


Petr

[danbaron]

It's a nice photograph.

I think we call "window doors", "shutters".

They made a really big deal about this event in the news.

And, I realize that it will not happen again until, I think, 2117.

But, to me, cosmologically, and to quote Shakespeare, it was, "much ado about nothing".

(A photograph of your eyeballs bleeding, would be quite interesting.)

I'll bet anyone that the same thing will never happen with Mars substituted for Venus.

Dan

[Petr Schreiber]

Hi Dan,

it might sound funny, but to me, it is very interesting to see something really works like presumed. That there is really some planet between us and the Sun, and that we are able to calculate when and where it will appear.
We are used to it, but to me it is still kind of magic.

For scientists, it was great opportuinity to watch Venus atmosphere for example.

Another similar event, the Solar eclipse (Moon in front of Sun), can look boring, as it already happened lot of times, but taking a photo during this special case helps to analyze structure of Solar corona, and during almost each photosession some new facts are revealed.

A real eye opener to astrophotography were (and are) lectures by prof. Druckmuller from university I studied on. He dedicates lot of energy to shooting Solar eclipses via multiple expositions with further mathematic postprocessing. The amount of information he can get out of it is impressive (he is Czech, but web is in English):
http://www.zam.fme.vutbr.cz/~druck/Eclipse/index.htm (http://www.zam.fme.vutbr.cz/%7Edruck/Eclipse/index.htm)

He is really smart, and all his lectures he makes outside of Uni are free for everyone, highly understandable - he is a prototype of "scientist done right" :)


Petr

P.S. Photo of my bleeding eyes... will keep it in mind, on next occasion I will take a photo and upload here :P
P.P.S. "Window doors" -> "Shutters" - I will remember that, thanks!

[danbaron]

Hi Petr.

I agree with you, it is in interesting.

I guess what really irritates me, is the MSM (mainstream media).

For me, it (the MSM) could take almost anything, and hype it so much (fundamentally, I guess, in order to sell stuff - what else is its real purpose?), that I end up hating whatever the thing is.

It could be the appearance of God on Earth, and, by the time it was through hyping it, and selling tee-shirts, I would probably want nothing to do with God.

Those pictures of the eclipses are nice.

I agree, it is different when you see something with your own eyes.

When I was an undergraduate, my roommate had a telescope.

One night he set it up on the roof.

It seemed to me, he had it pointed almost vertically.

I looked through it, and there it was, he had focused on Saturn.

It was amazing to me, seeing that the rings actually exist.

Soon after we were married, my wife bought me a little telescope.

Again, I was amazed when I could see the Moon's craters, seemingly in three dimensions.

----------------------------------------------------

It is apparent to me, that all of Earth's societies are converging into one.

All are beginning to speak a common language.

Daily, we see that people everywhere are fundamentally the same - the same thoughts, fears, hopes, dreams, humor, etc.

Even as far back as 20 years ago, when I was in graduate school, I had professors from Russia, Taiwan, Poland, and Serbia.

(I like really smart professors, who act normal - who don't try to talk "down" to you. I view intelligence as a talent, like any other talent, nothing more.)

Dan