h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

An excellently round black spot it is isn't it.
Myself and MC were able to get the suns image projected onto white card through binoculars and there it was

Even made it enjoyable getting up 3 hours earlier than normal. We only just missed first contact thanks to a small wispy cloud, but caught second contact and had a good half hour of clear skies to watch the little black dot progress across the sun
And to think we're more used to seeing Venus as a brilliant shining white star in the night sky and there it was, blacker than black

Actually I never thought of it like that. A "new Venus". I'm really glad I saw it - lucky even. When I set up my binoculars earlier in the morning, it was so cloudy, and the projection was so dim, that I had to bring the card really close to the view-finder to see any image at all - but at that range all I was seeing was the shadow of dirt from the binoculars itself!

Great, I'm glad you got to see it!

We had a very busy day at Jodrell, over 350 visitors in total! We missed first contact due to a badly placed bank of cloud, but got to see the rest quite well. For those of you in the Granada region, Fred the Weatherman came along (for everyone else: Fred is a bit of a local legend around here, he's very enthusiastic) and did a couple of reports which was fun.

There are lots of images on the Jodrell website now, including some stills from our webcam which was on the H-alpha telescope.

Did anyone try to measure the AU?


(A very tired) Megan

A friend of my dad sent him this question. We didn't know how to answer it, but I thought someone here might have an idea:

<>

He also took some photos which can be seen at: http://www.lpetrov.net/venus_transit/

I missed first and second contact - too cloudy (this IS North Wales!). Got a good view of the early part of the transit (the front headlights and grille) at around 6.45-7.00, then had to get out to w*rk. I took the binoculars to w*rk in the hope that the sun would put in an appearance later. No such luck!

I used binoculars and have some home-made filter covers for them. I bought one sheet of Baader filter material for the eclipse in '99 and got two heets in the post! I managed to get a filter for the telescope, one for the long lense of my camera and two for the bino's out of the sheets and gave some to a friend with a small refractor. What a bargain!

turvy

A for the first one to spot the missing letter.

turvy

heets = sheets

also

lense = lens {an extra letter there}

I've made an entry up for <./>thepost</.> A2724680
I'm going to add you all as Reserarchers who witnessed the event.



*starts to unwrap *

Hi GB

Congratulations and have another and a for spotting the second one!!

I'll pop over to the Post now.

turvy

I know I'm too late to say this technically, but I did in fact witness it but I've only just kind of rediscovered h2g2 so I didn't post here closer to the time. But what the heck:

It was cool... I got the morning off school (til 11.30) to see it and I went to a guy called Bill's house (he is a member of the Peterborough Astronomical Society) to do so. Got there at about 06.15 when he was just taking the bin liners off the three telescopes he'd set up yesterday. Saw the very beginning.

One of Bill's telescopes was projecting the sun onto a white surface. Another had a special filter to enable you to look at the sun through it and another was linked up to a television monitor in the sitting room so we could video record or just watch it.

Then more people started coming, two people brought their own telescopes, both with filters. They were also cool because they meant more than one person could have a squint. We had a talk in the garden while observing. Bill got a simulation of the transit running on a computer in his observatory, which has some cool astronomical photos in it.

All in all, a good day.

*waves*

Hi everyone who's still here - I've put together an entry on the History of the Transit of Venus and it's currently in Peer Review if anyone would like to comment

I'm adding contributing researchers as the entry is a Flea Market rescue.

Links, don't forget the links..

A9043959 the entry

F48874?thread=2262124 the PR thread for comments.

A9913908 <--- the edited entry. Is anyone planning to view the 2012 transit?