transit

Here's a quick pic I was able to put together with my Daystar and Solaris. I was wondering if anyone observed the teardrop effect or saw the atmosphere around Venus during the transit? I was fortunate to observe both in 2004 with a Herschel wedge. The atmosphere was visible for about a minute and was completely unexpected. When the white ring appeared around Venus I thought something was wrong with the eyepiece and replaced it with another eyepiece. The ring was still around Venus and I asked my wife to confirm the observation. I'll never forget that. Venus glided across the sun surrounded by a thin white ring. The teardrop effect was a neat illusion. James Cook would have been proud! This time the solar cycle was more active and it was neat to observe the transit with so many interesting features nearby. Martin

Attached Image:

I was using a Baader Planetarium visual filter on a very good [Vixen] 80 mm. f 11 refractor which I'd shortened for use with a binoviewer. I had 32 mm. plossls in the bino, which seemed ideal, the right combo for image size and sharpness.

I counted 24 sunspots in the two equatorial belts with a couple of those a bit outside the usual paths.

I looked for the "black drop" effect but windy conditions were making the image dance a bit; still, I think I may have to wait for the next one because I couldn't confirm seeing that.

I saw no indications of atmospheric effects on the planet, all I saw was a very sharply defined disc, maybe the size of a .45 bullethole in a basketball sized disc.

I noticed that the transit seemed to take much longer than the Mercury transits, which makes sense, as the orbit of Venus is further from the sun.

I got my photon fix now, time to slither and squelch my way back into my cave!

James Adams

Our club did a public event at the local university, but I hogged my Celestron CPC-800 during both 1st and 2nd contacts. I very clearly saw the "black drop" effect around 2nd contact but I did not notice the atmosphere. I also had my 5" SCT set up for time lapse photography, but I haven't had much time yet to go through the photos. I need to look at them specifically to see if I can detect the atmosphere, though I suspect our intermittent turbulence may make that difficult. BTW, both scopes had a Baader filter.