Transit thru the fog

It was socked in this morning near Harrisburg, PA. I got in the car and road around, and found a hilltop where the sun was visible thru the fog. Venus was clearly visible to the naked eye - so naked that not even a filter was needed. I set up my Ranger, with protection, and could not see the sun. With the filter removed, I was able to view Venus with a 20 mm eyepiece. I never thought I would look at the Sun thru an unprotected telescope.

I butted my Olympus D-560 to the eyepiece for this view (image reversed).

Attached Image:

Rob,

Thank you for sharing your image of the transit through the fog. From all the images posted it was certainly impressive.

Carlos

Rob,

Nice photo!

I was a little further East in Chester County, PA where we also had fog. It ws about 6:30 before the sun could penetrate the fog and my 1000 Oaks full apeture filter on my 4.7" Sinta refractor. I found the fog turned out to be an advantage in that it kept the air stable and delayed the daytime heating.

I was watching for the "Ink Drop" effect that was mentioned in a S&T article but noticed no such distortion in the outlines. When some minor turbulence did kick up the thin rim clearly became less distinct, but I found by slowly scanning my eye accross the image, it seemed to average out the turbulence's distortion and showed no change in the outlines. (I was using a 16mm Nagler and barlow for a magnification of 125X.)

I was wondering if anyone else noticed the "Ink Drop" in their observations and if it could be an illusion resulting from turbulence.

Mark Eschbacher