Transit of Venus as seen in California

My lovely wife is snapping photos already, as it has just started. Here’s a sample.

Canon 1D, ND400 filter, Hoya G filter, telephoto lens.

Via the WUWT Solar Page, here’s the image from the Solar Dynamics Observatory

closeup:

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Jason H
June 6, 2012 11:42 am

It was sunny all day here in Pensacola, FL with scattered clouds, right up until the very minute the transit was going to start. That’s when a large cloud bank from a storm front covered the sun, and I was certain I had lost the opportunity to see the transit with my own eyes. Later in the evening, just as the sun was setting, I noticed sunlight on the window blinds. I grabbed my welder’s glass, ran outside with my daughter, and managed to catch it just minutes before the sun sank behind the house at the end of the street. My neighbors probably wondered why I was doing a fist pump in the middle of my front yard.

Annie
June 6, 2012 12:12 pm

Thanks for the photographs. I had bino’s, white paper and camera to hand, and remembered to set the alarm for 0430…too bad it was cloudy! Rats!

Paul Coppin
June 6, 2012 1:53 pm

Reposting from the other Venus thread, since that thread was mostly about the atmosphere of Venus…:)
Here’s a quickie, just after second contact. I managed not to perfect focus so its a little off, and it was also on the long path low through a bubbly earthian atmosphere. I never seem to get these when the sun is high in the sky. Oh well, “maybe next time”, he said. Not:) I got a few more shots off before the trees swallowed it. ETX90 and a 1000 Oaks filter into my ol’ Nikon 950… Same stuff I used 8 years ago…. eek! Didn’t have much time this year to set something more elaborate.
http://ephemerata.ca/uploads/2012Venustransit2nd.jpg

Paul Coppin
June 6, 2012 1:56 pm

My neighbors probably wondered why I was doing a fist pump in the middle of my front yard.
Yeah me too, sitting on a stool under a black cloth to properly see the camera monitor. I remember having a conversation with somebody going by on the sidewalk suggesting I should “have fun”, under there… (!)

Crispin in Waterloo
June 6, 2012 3:39 pm

We got good peeks (about 20 of us) from above the cricket ground in Waterloo Park using a 60x telescope with a solar filter carefully adapted to the front (with duct tape). The sun more than filled the view. Wonderful ‘seeing’ through a clear afternoon sky. Photography though the lens proved difficult but one of us got very nice pics putting the filter over a high end Nikon with serious zooming powers.
It is hard to understand how Venus floats so beautifully in empty space. I like this universe. I think I’ll stay a while longer.
Thanks everyone above for all the fantastic links!

RoHa
June 6, 2012 4:44 pm

No.3
“Ignore RoHa, he’s probably an immigrant. We have a lot of trouble with those,”
The Aborigines say the trouble started in 1788. The kangaroos say it started about 40,000 years earlier.

Brian H
June 6, 2012 10:02 pm

RoHa;
considering the day and night contrast between our PMs (Harper vs. Gillard), I think the direction of ridicule is N→S between Canada and Oddstralia …
>:)
John Day;
That is one odd movie. http://solar.nro.nao.ac.jp/norh/html/10min/2012/06/06/movie.html Venus looks like a tumbling cube crossing the face. Must be the low resolution of the RF image.

Brian H
June 6, 2012 10:32 pm

Blade says:
June 6, 2012 at 4:36 am

It’s hard to tell what you most lack, humor or intelligence. The article and cite are ironic. Funny. Joking.
Duh.

Brian H
June 6, 2012 10:39 pm

Crispin in Waterloo says:
June 6, 2012 at 3:39 pm

It is hard to understand how Venus floats so beautifully in empty space.

Slightly poetic, but utterly misconceived. Try “how Venus screams at high speed thru [empty, except for the solar wind, etc.] space, just fast enough to keep from falling to its doom like a marshmellow into a bonfire.”
See? Accuracy can be poetic, too!
>;p

Blade
June 7, 2012 4:35 am

Brian H [June 6, 2012 at 10:32 pm] says:
“It’s hard to tell what you most lack, humor or intelligence. The article and cite are ironic. Funny. Joking. Duh.”

Ummm, what? I was commenting on the news clipping Smokey provided. It looks like an op-ed from a local newspaper. My comment is that it was clearly written by an AGW believing Obama voter. See here …

Smokey [June 5, 2012 at 7:14 pm] says:
“Meet the newest member of the Team…
specializing in Solar physics.”

Brian, are you implying I scewed up? Explain please. Particularly about a lack of sense of humor.

Mr. Alex
June 7, 2012 6:45 am

In South Africa we are on the edge of visibility, to optimise the view we drove 320km up north to the Saint Lucia Estuary on the KwaZulu-Natal coast… As the sun rose at 6:37 AM June 6th we managed to see Venus at its internal egress. It was amazing, you could actually see it without any filter… I took a picture with a simple digital camera (although it’s a bit blurred). By 6:49 it was gone. I will never forget it. I was lucky enough to see both the 2004 and 2012 transits and I am only 21.