Transit of Venus - members' results
June 8, 2004
Bob Williamson (SE London): I am sure you must be inundated with material considering the excellent weather, but if you are interested I was using a Meade ETX 125 with a solar filter and took several pictures with a Canon A70 through a 40mm eyepiece, one of which I have attached (it's still as seen ie reversed left to right) taken at 10.19 UT. Also took some video sequences with a Toucam the best of which to my mind was the point at which Venus made last contact with the Sun's edge.
Richard Bailey (Canterbury, Kent): Some pictures taken in hydrogen-alpha of the egress event. Plus a white light larger image of Venus in transit.
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10.21.15 UT
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11.57 UT
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11.04.31 UT
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11.15 UT
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11.23.10 UT
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11.23.40 UT
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08.28.13 UT
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J.B. Toby (Harrow, Middlesex): I have a picture of Venus and a plane transiting the sun. After I captured the entry points of Venus, I sat down and installed another camera to test out. Just after the second test shot I saw something moving in the viewfinder and just kept hitting the release button.
Damian Peach and Dave Tyler (Selsey, West Sussex):
Mel Jeffery (Malton, North Yorks): Things didn't look too promising to start with. At 5am (BST) we were subjected to a thunderstorm! At 6am got my refractor set up as the skies where hazy, but still a lot of cloud about. I managed to see 1st and 2nd contact before getting the children to their various destinations.
It was then to Dalby Forest, North Yorkshire, as the society, of which I am a member, had organised two public observing events. The main one in Scarborough and the other in Dalby.
In Dalby we managed to see most of the event between breaks in the cloud and we saw 3rd and 4th contact. The members of the public who joined us were delighted.
I also managed to do a bit of a sketch of the path Venus took so people could see where Venus was at certain times.
I did observe a bit of a black drop at the ingress not so noticeable at the egress.
Excellent , now I have seen both Mercury and Venus transit the Sun.
John Murray (Marshalls Heath near Wheathamstead, Herts): The enclosed was taken through the old First World War 2 inch refractor telescope my father gave me for Christmas 1959, out of my bedroom window this morning, shortly after sunrise.
Amazingly enough the same technology (Meccano stand, now very rusty) I constructed then still worked O.K., though I did use a Sony DSC-P10 digital camera instead of the Kodak Brownie box camera that I always used in 1960. The filter is the dark green one bought from one of those second hand shops in Tottenham Court Road, also in 1960.
Fiona Leiper (Scottish Highlands): I'm afraid the weather let us down here in the Highlands. Cloudy all morning, except for twenty minutes at 11.30 . Rushed outside, couldn't get a fix with the binoculars, pinhole and paper arrangement, so had to content myself with a naked-eye sighting (with my special solar filter I hasten to add). I could just make out Venus as it made its way to exit bottom right. It wasn't much, certainly not the wonderful, prolonged view that most of you had, but it was, nevertheless, very poignant seeing this tiny dot, dwarfed by the Sun, chugging its lonely way across.
All in all, a memorable morning.
Sean Farrell (location unknown): I got pics of a slight black drop at ingress and a more pronounced one at egress. I also noticed, just before second contact, what I took to be a thin atmosphere. It was on the side of the planet not on the sun and only very thin. Tried to find it at egress but had no luck.
I used an f5 200mm reflector, high magnifications, mylar filter.
Mike L (Formby, nr Liverpool): Even though I was at work, I managed to view the Venus Transit from start to finish. I too, was "speechless" at viewing such a fantastic once-in-a-lifetime event.
I used a Meade ETX-125 with 32mm Super Plossl and hand-made Baader filters to view, swapping with a Philips ToUcam Pro II now and again to capture stills and stream onto the web. I didn't use the WebCam that much, as I didn't have a focal reducer, so the WebCam only showed a small fraction of the whole solar disk.
I didn't observe the "black drop effect" around 2nd contact, although I am not sure what magnification was required to see it, but I was happy around 59x.
I hope everyone else enjoyed the event and had clear skies, and I look forward to hearing everyone else's experiences.
Kaustav Bhattacharya (Central London): I stood outside the Widescreen TV Centre in London (Baker Street) where they had a HUGE Helios refractor out, and a few other smaller 'scopes all trained on the sun. Superb viewing, especially through the Helios.
Managed to project the sun on to card during early morning using 10 x 50 binocs. Not having a tripod for it the image was very shakey. Nonetheless, it worked. Didn't chance it through my ETX105 without a filter. Might have fried the 'scope.
Robin Scagell (Flackwell Heath, Bucks): I did not see any definite Black Drop, but I was only viewing using a small refractor at x 40 on this occasion. At third contact, however, there seemed to be a certain greyness between the limbs of the planet and the Sun, and I think that had I been observing at higher power I would have seen it. A pity, as I have heard about this effect ever since I was a kid.
In a strange reversal of the usual fortune, it got quite cloudy when the transit was over.
I notice that Horrocks's original report also mentioned that there was just a small sunspot, consisting of three dots, which is similar to the one we saw today. His telescope cost half a crown (12.5p), the equivalent of £40 today. It can't have been too bad, judging by the accuracy of his observations. There are probably plenty of far worse ones around nowadays, masquerading as 'high-power astro telescopes'! I have processed the shots I took this morning with a 1000 mm Russian mirror lens and the 10D. One of the non-existent Black Drop (which no one saw) included.
One signficant thing about this transit is the lack of a genuine Black Drop, at least from most observers. Those who did see anything were not very certain about it. If you look at the drawings from Captain Cook etc (see for example several references at http://www.transitofvenus.org/historic.htm), the Drop was very prominent and clearly made a lot of difference to the timings. In some images there is a long tube that must have persisted for several minutes.
I have heard from Martin Lewis (who is speaking at our Preston Montford weekend this year). He was observing from St Albans using a 210 mm reflector and full-aperture filter at x 200. While he could see the bright atmosphere of Venus around the edge of the planet before it was fully on the solar disc, he did not see *any* black drop. Dave Tyler, using an 80 mm apo down at Selsey with Patrick Moore also saw no drop. I am hoping to get images and drawings from these two to put on the site shortly.
As I have been reading about this 'ere Drop since I was a kid, I thing we should be told -- what went wrong? Were the former observers using poor equipment? Maybe the 18th century observers were, but surely not those of the 19th century. Did we get so much better seeing? Or has the atmosphere of Venus changed (eg got denser) over the years?
I myself have seen evidence of the refractive powers of Venus's atmosphere. In 1981 I went to Kenya to see an occultation of 2nd magnitude Sigma Sagittarii (Nunki) by Venus. The star did not disappear for several minutes, but dimmed and moved round the limb of the planet as starlike point. I would not be surprised if there were a Black Drop caused by some effect of refraction, in addition to the irradiant effect which applies to Mercury.
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05.28 UT
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05.35 UT (with con trails)
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05.39.48 UT
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05.46 UT
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Sally Ballard and Paul Sutherland (Stratford upon Avon): Despite occasional high cloud, the transit was a great success. Low cloud meant we missed the entrance of Venus on to the Sun's disk but several pictures were taken using a Nikon Coolpix 885 digital camera and an ETX 90 with Scopetronix sun filter. Here is a small selection. You can also click here to view a crude animation.
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06.50 UT
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08.24 UT
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11.05 UT
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11.16 UT
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Lance Garwood (Chelmsford, Essex): A wonderful morning here in Essex with clear skies for the entire transit . No black drop visible at egress and just a hint at ingress. I did notice a slight flattening of the disc of Venus a few seconds away from 4th contact using a 150mm reflector at 100x.
I thought forum users might be interested in my contact timings as follows
1st contact 05.20.30 UT
2nd 05.41 .21 UT
3rd 11.04.03 UT
4th 11.23.33 UT
1st contact is probaly way out due to the fact I wasn't exactly sure where on the Sun's disk the transit was going to begin.
Brian Jeffrey (Wellingborough): Well, the weather here certainly came up trumps! Mercury transit 7 May 2003 AND Venus transit 8 June 2004 - wonderful. Now I just have 43 webcam sequences to process.
My timings were:
Missed contact 1 due to low cloud
Contact 2 05h40m38s UT
Contact 3 11h03m45s UT
Contact 4 11h22m47s UT
Brian
52d 16m 1s N
0d 37m 59s W
Ian Knight (Downend, Bristol): I have attached a photo I took of Venus this morning at approx. 06:40 from my back garden. The photo was taken by placing a specialist solar filter on my telescope (80mm Refractor) and taking a shot through the eyepiece with a standard no-frills digital camera.
Neale Hind (Stamford, Lincs): Being new to astronomy I am so impressed. Just the ability to look at the Sun (using Baader film) has been amazing.
Then actually catching first contact (06:38:15 by my watch) and following Venus through was an awe-inspiring, astonishing experience.
Black-drop effect at the start was a bit of a letdown compared to the solid black disk of the transit in progress.
If I really stretch my imagination I might convince myself I saw the exit black-drop at 12:04:18 (by my watch).
What a wonderful morning it's been (even though I've had to work through it as well!)
Shelagh Godwin (Guildford, Surrey): The black dot of Venus is clearly visible on a piece of A4 white paper on to which is projected the image from my 7x50s. The Guildford AS were at Newlands Corner at 6.15am and viewed the first contact at exactly the predicted time - how things have moved on since 1639! I did a short interview from the site on BBC Southern Counties Radio.
Joe Cummings (London): Absolutely stunning. On a beautiful morning I watched in amazement as the white solar disc was eaten up by the black Venus. The disc kept getting bigger and bigger, very much bigger than I expected. Quite beautiful. Absolutely no black drop effect so I suppose it must be down to optics, i.e. they are better now than back then. There was though a very noticeable aurorial light that formed little arcs and then joined up just before second contact.
Got to work now so I will miss third and fourth but I look forward to hearing from others. I hope the weather clears north of here (London) but it could not have been better in the south-east, even a few sunspots to interest us.
Mike Feist: (Portslade, West Sussex): Clear skies, great views. Binomite image excellent.
Martin Hall (Whittlesey): Oh what a beautiful morning. Lovely clear skies here in Whittlesey. I just set up in time to catch first contact but didn't see the black drop effect due to a neighbour's tree in the way. Hope to catch it later. I'm quite surprised at the size of the disk of Venus i was expecting it to be smaller.
Well worth a day off!
Guy Fennimore (Nottingham): Here in Nottingham we did astronomy on the radio! The BBC Radio Nottingham outside broadcast van rolled up and we did three live feeds into the Breakfast Show, probably taking about 15 minutes of air time in total. The transit was mentioned in all that morning's news bulletins too, using some stuff I'd pre-recorded for them the previous day. Good to see the interest that the radio station showed.
Eddie Mallett (Suffolk): I hope that you all enjoyed the wonderful transit of Venus. I must say that I was transfixed by the whole transit, it was wonderful.
Many people showed a great interest in the transit from where I was set up and I was only too happy to show them this stunning event. Must have been 50 odd people that witnessed this rare transit event with me.
But one thing that I was puzzled by was just as Venus was near the edge of the sun, (not touching the edge of the sun) just before & coming out of the transit. The whole while during the transit Venus was a pure round black spot. But as it was nearing the edge of the sun, there was a green and at times pink effect around Venus. I'm totally puzzled by this & what it was. I keep hearing about Venus's atmosphere being seen & I wondered if this strange aura around venus was Venus's atmosphere.
The telescope that I was using was a Meade ETX-90. My new telescope. It's a very nice scope.
Cliff Meredith (Greater Manchester): Fantastical!
Unfortunately the start of the event was clouded out and bad seeing caused by thin cloud marred the finale, but there were several hours of fantasic views and occasional broken cloud between. So I got loads of pics as well as naked eye views (Baader filtered of course). I was even able to show my wife and some neighbours and even some builders doing a job nearby. They were chuffed to blazes at seeing the transit. They had heard about it on the telly but never expected to see it. So they told me they would be telling their mates in the pub tonight. Great stuff !
The sheer size of Venus quite surprised me. It was dead easy to see by naked eye, even for an old codger. Most of my pics were taken using a digital camera with a 100 to 300mm (35mm film equivalent format) zoom lens. I mostly used 300mm focal length but Venus appears visible on shots using only about 100mm FL. I did a little ToUcamming and also took one afocal pic using another compact digital camera with my 70mm refractor.
Fabulous fun event.
John Murrell (Croydon, Surrey): Down at the Croydon Astronomical Society's observatory the weather was fine all day - nice moonrise too around 02:00 UT! We had around 7 telescope & projectors. From a simple pinhole to live video from an Astrovid on a Celeston 8GPS wih a Solar Filter. This was projected using a digital projector so Venus was around 6" Diameter. I thing I did notice was that the effects of turbulence were lower than for the transit of Mercury - not sure if this was just the difference in size of the planets image or if the light wind helped. Temperature was 31C in the shade.
Not sure how many visitors we had around 70 -80 I think.
We got timings differences from different observers of around +- 1 min. I have 6 Hours of Video + digital files of Ingress & Egress.
I think there was a black drop effect but the contrast on the monitor I was using together with the camera AGC seemed to effect the size of the image.
Kevin Wright (Lowestoft, Suffolk): The transit was one of the most amazing sights I've ever seen. Looking out of my bedroom window at 4am, I was greeted by one of the clearest horizons I've seen for a long while. Down on Pakefield cliffs I also got more of a hint of a blackdrop effect at ingress than at egress which is funny perhaps because I was on a higher magnification at egress. I would like to think I detected a hint of the Venusian atmosphere at ingress.
I was unaware that our society's secretary had placed ads in the local press and a conservative estimate is that 100 plus people showed up throughout and the human aspect turned out to be just as moving as the spectacle itself. I'll always remember the 86-year-old lady who went away only to come back awhile later with her friends from the old peoples home and then she came back later with her son and daughter-in-law. A lot of children came very early before school with their parents because it seems that their schools weren't doing anything to mark the occasion!!! Special tribute should go to our society's catering department (John) who was happy to sit there in his straw hat and with his calor gas stove, making bacon rolls and cups of tea and coffee, not only for us but for members of the general public (free of charge) as well.
Apart from the sounds of amazement expressed at the views seen in my ETX-90, a fellow member's Orion 150, and a Solarscope, I felt that the strongest reaction of many came when from when they had a protected, naked-eye look through eclipse glasses. I think it was seeing that little dot silhouetted against the sun that gave people a first hand idea of the scale of things. Or they were just amazed that they could see it with the naked eye.
The only people who seemed to be unmoved by the event were the members of the local sea angling club. Tuesdays, we found out later, is their match day and most of them arrived at the same time as us and set up on the beach without paying us a blind bit of notice. Their lack of enthusiasm for the astronomical delight on offer could possibly be put down to the fact that cod are actually rarer than transits in these parts nowadays.
All in all a brilliant day.
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