Celestia Forums

Hi all,

I think it is an interesting thought that no living human being has ever watched a Venus transit in front of the sun!

Here you can watch the Venus transit on June 8 (Tuesday morning, center position of the crossing around 10:22 MEST= 8:22 GMT) LIVE

http://www.venusvoordezon.nl/index_en.htm



also note this one

http://www.xs4all.nl/~carlkop/venus/transit.html

Since in Europe this is just in the late morning, we'll have a good reason to stop working. We'll jointly watch the event with my "Mylar-sun glasses" and possibly other equipment that I shall bring along depending on the weather...

Bye Fridger

I'll probably watch with Celestia...

Regards...bh.

Look at this shot I made 2 years ago with Celestia

http://www.shatters.net/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=Calculus&id=Transit_Venus_Sun_2004_string


I'll see the transit through a professional solargraph. The sun projection will be over 2 meters diameter!

Have a nice 8th of June.

Calculus wrote:Look at this shot I made 2 years ago with Celestia

http://www.shatters.net/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=Calculus&id=Transit_Venus_Sun_2004_string


I'll see the transit through a professional solargraph. The sun projection will be over 2 meters diameter!

Have a nice 8th of June.

Just great....

Bye Fridger

I have my black polymer filter ready to work.
The problem is that at 3 hours after the start of the transit i have a test(physics) and maybe i ll miss the exit of venus from the sun....

I'll try getting up early in the morning. From where I am, the transit will be happening when the sun rises. I'll use a projection screen with my telescope to see an image of the sun.

Brendan

Looking West from my house NOW, ...Venus approaching...

Bye Fridger

Brendan wrote:I'll try getting up early in the morning. From where I am, the transit will be happening when the sun rises. I'll use a projection screen with my telescope to see an image of the sun.

Brendan

Hope in a sunny day. I'll make some shots on a A4 projection screen. See you tomorrow.

'night

Since nobody has asked, presumably all of you know
precisely what one can learn in principle from observing
the transit of Venus...?

Just in case this is not completely clear to some, here is
an interesting URL with various projects and step by
step instructions that make clear what Venus transits
may teach us.

http://didaktik.physik.uni-essen.de/~backhaus/VenusProject.htm

The determination of the Earth distance to the Sun, i.e. of
the Astronomical Unit (AU), furnishes the basic length
scale in the description of our solar system. Clearly, the
AU can be determined today much more accurately with
other means, but it might still be interesting to
remember the former high scientific value of precision
observations of these extremely rare Venus transits from widely spaced locations on earth...

Bye Fridger

t00fri wrote:Since nobody has asked ...

Maybe everyone feels adequately informed already?

Grant

granthutchison wrote:

t00fri wrote:Since nobody has asked ...

Maybe everyone feels adequately informed already?

Grant

Grant,

I am sure you are right. I had not seen that thread, sorry.

With 1454 registered users and 82 visits in that thread,
5.6% of the forum members were indeed informed.

Should I erase the above URL? It's easy...

Bye Fridger

t00fri wrote:With 1454 registered users and 82 visits in that thread,
5.6% of the forum members were indeed informed.

Well *I* hadn't seen it if that counts for anything.

Thanks to you both for the information. Interesting world we live in.

Take care, Bob

t00fri wrote:... 5.6% of the forum members were indeed informed

My point was that if 1 in 18 forum members turn up for a thread specifically labelled "Transit of Venus and the Earth-Sun distance" and no further discussion takes place, this might explain the lack of further spontaneous questions arising on your own thread. You'll notice that I didn't say everyone was informed, merely that they might feel adequately informed already - for a lot of people, I suspect zero information on this topic is more than adequate!

Grant

PS: Thick overcast in east Scotland this morning.

Well guys,

I've seen the entire transit (fine sunny and clear weather) here in Germany. No clouds, just the sky, the sun and venus!

I took some pictures and webcam avi's throught my 1000mm refractor.

You want some pics?
I'm going to offer some at this threat http://celestiaproject.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5182 within the next days, if anybody wants me to do so...

Adirondack

granthutchison wrote:

t00fri wrote:... 5.6% of the forum members were indeed informed

My point was that if 1 in 18 forum members turn up for a thread specifically labelled "Transit of Venus and the Earth-Sun distance" and no further discussion takes place, this might explain the lack of further spontaneous questions arising on your own thread. You'll notice that I didn't say everyone was informed, merely that they might feel adequately informed already - for a lot of people, I suspect zero information on this topic is more than adequate!

Grant

PS: Thick overcast in east Scotland this morning.

I understand...

Adding now our two threads up, we reach about 33% "info visits" (including many repetitive ones, of course). That should do for Venus;-)

Sorry to hear about the weather conditions up north.

Here it was beautiful (sunny with some clouds) and I had my equipment 10x40 binoculars fitted with mylar foil hoods and a bunch of sun shades (also with mylar foils) heavily used by half of my Dept. on our parking lot. My lab also had installed some big-size projection setup and a 3 inch telescope.

And of course on our Theory "white"board I had posted 2 color prints from Celestia;-)

Bye Fridger

I also saw it. I could not see it complete because in the middle I had a test in physics(the last one in the high school). But I saw almost the first 2.5 hours and the last minutes, and also took many pictures and one 230MB video. I dont understand why it was 230Mb: when I setted up the capture it said it would be 2Mb, but i is 230... so I dont udnerstand.
Doesnt matter, IT WAS SPECTACULAR!

BTW: I used a 3 inch reflector with a black polymer filter made by my self, I also could saw it with naked eyes and the filter, and with a pair of small binoculars...

One last thing: understanding how this transits happen, we can try to find extra solar planets in the same way: when a planet transits its mother star, its luminocity is a little lower. Using that technique we(humans) have found many extra solar planets...

t00fri wrote:I understand...

I wasn't at all clear - it was late at night, and I knew what I was trying to say ...

Solid overcast for the whole transit here in Dundee, and also on the west coast in Glasgow. A friend there got a 30-second glimpse of the Sun, during which time he just failed to get its image correctly focused on his white screen ...

Grant

Looking west of my house at today's sunset...Venus ahead ...(cf yesterday's image above!)

Bye Fridger

granthutchison wrote:

t00fri wrote:I understand...

I wasn't at all clear - it was late at night, and I knew what I was trying to say ...

Solid overcast for the whole transit here in Dundee, and also on the west coast in Glasgow. A friend there got a 30-second glimpse of the Sun, during which time he just failed to get its image correctly focused on his white screen ...

Grant

How sad...

Have a click at Spitsbergen's weather today! These people were much worse off, indeed...

During our joint Venus watch today, there was an interesting study I did as an aside;-): among the 10-20 people from my Dept., great differences became soon apparent of /how fast/ the pale Sun &Venus were located by the various people within the /totally dark field/ of my (mylar covered) binoculars.

As a reference, it typically takes me a few seconds (after staring into all sorts of telescopes regularly since decades).

I also gave explicit instructions how to find the sun: hold the binoculars at first at some distance from your eyes and cover the sun disk with the central focussing knob. Then adjust the sun's glare around the binoculars symmetrically. Finally move the instrument carefully to your eyes. ...and here it is;-)

Nevertheless: There were about 5 female and 6 male PhD students from all over the globe. All of them quite fast, one girl being clearly ahead of everyone else.

The more senior generation was generally considerably slower. Only one senior /astrophysicist/ from the US did not succeed at all...

Bye Fridger