Tuesday, June 8th 2004

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Transit of Venus

There was a transit of Venus today so I decided to drag out my equipment. Although I have a solar filter, I have no way of photographing through the telescope with the digital camera. So I decided to just use eyepiece projection. To this end, I selected two wire coat-hangers from my wardrobe and constructed a mounting frame. The side of a cardboard wine cask served as a screen holder. And a sheet of A4 paper from the printer became a projection screen.

Some photos are below, but a more complete set is here.

The scope with the projection screen held in place with coat-hanger wire and sticky tape. I moved the telescope a few metres back from this position before the transit began.

Here you can see the Sun's image on the screen.

Yuko hassled me to let her take a picture of me. But as the camera was mounted on the telescope to photograph the transit, she couldn't. But after second contact I removed the camera briefly so Yuko could take this picture. I didn't bother with polar alignment but just plopped the tripod down with the polar axis pointing roughly south. It was good enough to allow me to follow the sun with mainly just one knob.

The following photos of the transit are oriented the same as this diagram. Ie: North is at the top and east is to the left. The images have been rotated, cropped, darkened and re-sized.

Diagram from: http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/transit/venus0412.html

Near second contact Venus is clearly visible. There is obvious limb darkening aroung the limb (where else) of the sun. I'm surprised this shows up so well with projection. alt="">

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The "black drop" effect? It was not as obvious as expected. alt="">

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3.53pm Some clouds are visible at upper right

As the Sun moved behind trees I re-focussed the telescope to show the trees. alt="">

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Venusian Injury

During preparations for the transit, I injured my toe by striking it against a wall with moderate force. I therefore blame this injury on the planet Venus.

Morning

Earlier...

Yuko put her pickles in the sun to ferment. They smell disgusting!

Epitome

The jack hammers we at work again and the gazebo pavers looked like a disaster zone. So we had to go upstairs again.

There was a dead fish in the tank. This time the yabbies can't be blamed. I think this fish cost $400.

Mother

Mother's VCR was ready to pick up. So I picked it up. It cost $155 to fix. I took it to her place and connected the cables and Mother was very happy.

Mother and Marie have been studying painting. She showed me a picture she painted. It's an abstract portrait of an un-named world leader...

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