Observing

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