Howdy!

Well, after waiting twenty years for the big event on June 5 2012, all of a sudden it is gone. And it will never happen from Earth again in my lifetime. Yep, Venus transited the sun. I observed the event from Sun Valley, California. When you look at these pictures, remember that Venus is a lot closer to the Earth than it is to the sun. If you moved Venus as far away as the sun, it would only be about one-third the diameter it appears here. And Venus is the same size as the Earth. Yep, the sun is huge!

The weather was clear and nice, with a little breeze. I have here some pix I made afocally by aiming my little P&S digital into the eyepiece of my 60mm f/7 Parks refractor, hand held. These are the white-light images, through a Baader filter. I made the other image the same way, except through Tom and Edie's Coronado H-alpha solar scope. And just to top it off; Tom, Hector, and I were treated to some of Edie's yummylicious food! Thank you again, Edie! Who could ask for more??

Visually we were treated to a couple of bright flares in the Ha: a small one, and a big squiggly one. When they faded there was a dark sguiggly line running between the remnants. In the white-light scopes there were plenty of sunspots. I brought Uncle Jerry's antique 4.75" f/5 Newtonian. But I did most of my observing through the 60mm with a Celestron 26mm eyepiece, and a Televue 2.5x Barlow. When Venus was part-way into the sun, I was able to see the bright line all the way around the planet, which is the light of the sun refracting through the thick Venusian atmosphere. We saw lots of birds fly by in front of the sun. And then Edie saw an upside-down jet fly through the sun, to which Tom asked: Were the passengers screaming? If you missed this event, don't worry. Just head on out to Jupiter, and a few years from now you will get a second chance....

All pictures © copyright 2012 by John Sherman