I hope you were able to safely see the transit of Venus either in person or online yesterday. I did and it was quite a tale that I want to share with you.
I had a busy couple of days on TV and radio doing segments about the transit all while fighting the worst chest cold I have ever had in my life! I was worried about losing my voice while on air! But the segments went well and here they are is you would like to see them:
I took off from work early as I was coughing pretty badly and did not want to bother my co-workers and drove south to be with my telescope. All the way clouds were prevalent but there were a few "sucker holes" (gaps in the clouds that give one false hope about clear skies).
At an hour to go the clouds thinned a bit and I thought there was a chance but at T-30 minutes it started t rain! Well, with the streets drenched and the SUn behind aback of clouds, I said, "Nope, ain't gonna work" and went mobile.
Driving back north there were big gaps in the clouds and I was able to pull over and get my Nikon out and use my solar filter to take some shots. People pulled over to take peeks through my filter and see my shots on the camera....very cool and shows you how people were aware and interested in seeing the transit.
All in all yesterday was historic....millions if perhaps even billions of people saw the transit one way or another. People on our planet were given a chance to see the solar system in its proper context and size. Don Petit got shots from ISS and real science was done using spacecraft and telescopes.
I wonder what 2117 will bring for the human race when Venus once again crosses the Sun.
Sky Guy in VA
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