If you missed the Venus transit…

Living in Kenya, I was working with a narrow window to begin with, using a sun funnel.

I got a brief glimpse, but it was mostly cloudy.

In case something similar happened to you, remember the story of Guillaume de Gentil, as recounted in Coming of Age in the Milky Way. He left France to go to India to record the transit of Venus due to occur in 1761. Despite leaving a year ahead of time, he was still at sea on the day of the transit. He decided to stay on, since Venus was due to pass across the face of the sun 1769. When the day arrived, he was fully prepared. He had everything ready to record the event as accurately as scientific instruments would allow in those days. Just as the transit was about to begin, in an otherwise clear sky, a lone cloud passed in front of the sun and somehow managed to remain there for the entire three hours of the transit. Things didn’t work out any better when he returned home to France. In his absence, his relatives had convinced the courts to declare him dead and taken possession of all his goods.

Some people have all the luck.

Clears,
Joe

Haha! So I guess I shouldn't complain that I was only able to view this years transit for an hour, from the comfort of my backyard with a excellent telescope?

We had much better luck in Fresno, California, than le Gentil did. BTW, I used his story in a presentation about the transit that I gave to my astronomy club last month and later to a group of middle school kids. I told them the moral of the story is that Frenchmen should not chase transits because the risks are too high.

June 4th was cloudy, windy, with scattered showers, but June 5th was clear all day with only a handful of small wispy clouds. It was breezy at times so atmospheric turbulence varied throughout the afternoon. Our club entertained more than 300 people and a TV news crew at Fresno State University. I hogged my scope for both first and second contact, but mostly let the visitors have the scope. I was able to definitively see Venus on the limb at just over one minute after the theoretical time for first contact. On the time lapse photos I took through my other scope I am able to zoom in an see Venus about 15 seconds after first contact. I finally lost the transit about 7:50 PM, or about 25 minutes before sunset, due to a tree and some clouds on the far horizon. Our local astronomy professor didn't check the azimuth for the setting sun against the horizon, so he lost the transit about 45 minutes before I did due to a much closer tree. This is one place where my background in civil engineering and land surveying trumps a PhD in astronomy.