Transit of Venus photography

[Beerina]

Lush, verdant Michigan is lush and verdant for a reason.

No pinhole camera fun today.

 

[I Ratant]

It starts...
From Palmdale..






Really dirty imager....

 

[rjh01]

I have just used a magnifying glass and cannot see the shadow of Venus. All I can see is that I have a crap lens.

Method. Put a magnifying glass near a wall. Allow the sun's rays to pass though the glass and form a shadow on the wall.

 

[GeeMack]

I have just used a magnifying glass and cannot see the shadow of Venus. All I can see is that I have a crap lens.

Method. Put a magnifying glass near a wall. Allow the sun's rays to pass though the glass and form a shadow on the wall.

You can do that with binoculars or a telescope, too. Do not, of course, look directly at the Sun.

 

[EventHorizon]

I'm kind of disappointed I never picked up a sun filter for my telescope but the sun did dance in and out of the clouds enough for me to project its image with my binoculars. Got a great look at Venus. Very cool!

 

[I Ratant]

Later that same day....

 

[steve s]

I took this using a cheap set of binoculars mounted on a tripod. I projected it onto a sheet of foamcore with a sheet of white styrene taped to it. The sun is a little oblong from shooting at an angle. You can also see sunspots, or maybe my binoculars are just really dirty.

http://i1089.photobucket.com/albums/i347/Steven_A_S/sun2.jpg

Steve S

 

[alfaniner]

If I didn't already have one in the June photo contest I might have submitted this one (Contrast)

How I set it up:

 

[GeeMack]

If I didn't already have one in the June photo contest I might have submitted this one (Contrast)
[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/1714fce98f70df2d.jpg[/qimg]

How I set it up:
[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/1714fce98f72b2b0.jpg[/qimg]

Excellent.

 

[GeeMack]

I took this using a cheap set of binoculars mounted on a tripod. I projected it onto a sheet of foamcore with a sheet of white styrene taped to it. The sun is a little oblong from shooting at an angle. You can also see sunspots, or maybe my binoculars are just really dirty.

http://i1089.photobucket.com/albums/i347/Steven_A_S/sun2.jpg

Steve S

Excellent, too.

 

[hcmom]

We have two telescopes, two DSLRs, and a couple hand-held viewers set up. I'll post some pictures later. They won't be awesome quality, but they'll still be AWESOME.

 

[ravdin]

Taken from San Francisco.

 

[jasonpatterson]

Okay, I did look it up. The "Venusian year" is 225 days, so your 140 was 365-225. Now it makes sense - when Venus is back where it was, Earth is almost 2/3 of the way around too. So, even though Venus orbits the sun in less than a year, it isn't that much less, and it takes 2.5 years to "lap" it.

Thanks again.

Exactly so. Sorry for the confusion, I should have been clearer. I actually did the math to figure out how long it would take the two planets to align again, and using their real orbital periods I get 1168 days, or 3.2 years. This was done assuming both planets to have circular orbits, which is wrong, but is still a reasonable approximation.

That said, after an entire day with cloud cover so thick that I never had anything like a shadow, let alone a good view of the sun, the sky cleared up and I was able to see the big event. I got my daughters to have a look. The younger one (4) was suitably unimpressed, but my 6 year old either took pity on me and faked it convincingly or actually thought it was cool. They both were much more enthusiastic when I showed them that you could use binoculars to project an image of scenery onto a piece of paper.

 

[Ravenwood]

From Maui

 

[steve s]

From Maui

Really nice shot.

Steve S

 

[steve s]

I started out shooting in my back yard, but as the sun got lower the trees got in the way so I went up to the local community center. I got these just before the sun set. The first one has several power lines and the second one has a couple of backboards on a distant playground.

http://i1089.photobucket.com/albums/i347/Steven_A_S/sun4.jpg

http://i1089.photobucket.com/albums/i347/Steven_A_S/sun3.jpg

Steve S

 

[billw]

I did the binoculars/foamcore board thing as well - from the sidewalk in front of our house in Far North Glendale, CA:

 

[hcmom]

Twelve out of the 200 pictures I took: (mostly I just took that many for bracketing purposes)

 

[hcmom]

 

[hcmom]