Venus Transit 2012

Congratulations, Glenbrook. You're the only one so far with a positive result.

Aubrey.

Here in the sunny souty-east the clouds parted for 5 minutes. Then it was raining.

I got my two lads, 12 and 14, and my wife up to view it through a pair of binoculars with filters on.
Just barely enough time for all to see before it went cloudy again.
Not the best of photos as i forgot the camera in teh car and the lens fogged a bit!

Still as the eldest lad said "it was the astronomical event of a lifetime", and we saw it!!

Bren C

Well done to all who saw it! I was up on a roof waiting to no avail!

Something else for the calender:



Grazing Ocultation of Jupiter, fom 2:30am July 15, 2012

Early in the morning of July 12, the Moon will partially cover Jupiter. Letchworth is on the northern edge of the zone of visibilty; from further north no occultation will be visible, and from further south the planet will be completely hidden by the Moon.

' www.ldas.org.uk/activities/jupiter_occulation.html '

Yes, I got lucky, but just for a few moments. When I got up at 4:30 it was very overcast. I nearly went back to bed, but there did seem to be one break in the clouds which looked promising, so I drove up to the top of the hill in Passage West with the solar telescope and camera. Nothing much until 5:28 when the sun broke through for a few seconds. It was raining gently throughout so I was just sitting in the car waiting to go home, but then it was a panic. Managed to get the telescope aligned and saw the transit while it was still full on the disk of the sun. It was larger than I expected. Then I wasted the rest of the time trying get a photo but by the time I had the lens, filter, focus in place the upper limb of the sun was obscured by cloud. An observer in East Cork or Waterford might have had a better view through the same break.

Philip

I got a fairly good view from Wicklow Town from about 5:20 to 5:40 as the Sun came up above the cloud over the Irish Sea. Photo attached was taken with a dSLR at 5:28

Martin

Excellent Shot Martin!!!