Observing

Well, the transit was a great success! Several members of the club made their way to Kincardine while about 15 of us decided on the Binbrook Conservation Area. A large selection of scopes were set up both on the hill and down by the dock. Quite a few pictures were taken of first and second contact and nobody moved far from their scopes during that period. Once Venus was completely on the sun's disk, everyone moved around and enjoyed views through some of the other scopes. For me, I think that the biggest moment came when Venus' atmosphere became visible as a thin arc against the blackness of space. It made it more 'real' for want of a better word and as John pointed out, this was only recorded for the first time in 2004. I was also blown away by the views through the hydrogen alpha scopes that were there. In the double stacked scope you could see flares arcing up not only on the edge of the sun, but also on parts of the face. The 3d effect was amazing! All in all we have been treated with 2 great events in just a couple of weeks. The best lame solar eclipse I can remember seeing and the Venus transit both through my scope and many others.

Tuesday, June 5th started out overcast with rain threatening but the clouds started breaking up in the afternoon, just in time to set up equipment and prepare for the transit event that started about 6 pm local.

My setup was an 11" SCT with binoviewer and a separate 4" apo, both with appropriate solar filtering, of course! Passers-by saw the telescopes on the front lawn and stopped off for a view of the planet Venus in silhouette against the sun. Every few minutes a thick cloudwould hide the view in the 4" apo, but the big telescope was largely undaunted, and a binoviewer gave a 3-D like view of Venus and several sunspot groups.

Therese took some handheld snapshots, one of which follows:

Therese - hand-held shot through 32mm Tele-Vue eyepiece on 11 inch Nexstar SCT