Transit of Venus

All the following photographs were taken using my Nikon Coolpix 4500 mounted afocally looking through a 40mm plossl eyepiece, giving a magnification of x50. The close-up shots were at maximum camera zoom of x4, effectively giving a magnification of x200. The TV output of the camera was feed into a 5inch black & white TV, the screen of which was shielded against the bright sunlight. A solar filter was fitted to the front of the telescope and a yellow filter to the eyepiece. The camera was set to 100 ISO, manual exposure, 1/8 second for the close-ups, and 1/15 second for all the others. To avoid jarring the telescope, a remote release cord was used to trigger the camera. My 60mm refractor was piggy-backed onto the SCT and used to project an image of the transit in a projection box so that a quick reference could be made on the progress. Because I had this equipment set up in my front garden, I had a number of passers-by that asked to see the transit for themselves. The transit started at 05:19 UT with first contact, second contact was at 05:39 UT, mid transit was at 08:22 UT, third contact at 11:04 UT and ended at 11:20 UT with fourth contact (UT = universal time). .
	A close-up of the 'black drop' effect just after second contact.
	A sequence of 6 photographs from here that show Venus crossing the Sun.
	Venus Facts Second planet in the Solar System Distance from the Sun = 67,239,000 miles Diamerter = 7,565 miles Orbital period = 224.7 Earth days Venus' orbit is inclined at 3.4 degrees to the ecliptic 1 Venus day = 243 Earth days Planet rotation is retrograde (opposite to Earth's) Has the highest known planetary albedo = 0.76 (light reflective ratio, Earth = 0.37) Venus' atmosphere is about 90 times more massive that the Earth's Surface atmospheric pressure = 90 times Earth's Surface temperature = 460 degrees Celcius
	Venus Facts The atmosphere is mainly carbon dioxide and sulphuric acid with traces of carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulphide, hydrochloric and hydrofluoric acids amongst others. The Soviets are the only ones to date to have sent spacecraft that landed on Venus, Venera 7, 9, 10, 13 and 14, between 1970 and 1983.



	A close-up of the 'black drop' effect just before third contact.
Click here to view an animation of the beginning of the transit	This short gif animation is 96Kb in size and plays in a 200 x 150 pixel window created using a sequence of photographs..
Click here to view an animation of the end of the transit	This short gif animation is 236Kb in size and plays in a 200 x 150 pixel window created using a sequence of photographs.
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The Transit of Venus 8th June 2004