On June 5th at about 6PM, Venus began crossing the face of the Sun. It was very cloudy at the beginning and I thought I would not be able to see it at all, but the clouds broke just in time for me to get a photo just as Venus made contact with the Sun. The clouds came and went until about 7:15 when they ended the viewing for the day. It would have ended at 8:36 anyway, when the sun set.
It took about 6 and 1/2 hours for Venus to cross the face of the sun.
The farther west you went, the more you could see of the transit.
At least I got to see some of it. The last time this happened was in 2004 and the next time will be 2117, so the 15 to 20 minutes I was able to observe it was better than nothing !!
Astronomically, it was a big event.
This was a practice one I took 2 days before. I wanted to see how well my simple point and shoot digital camera worked. Not too bad. Quite a few sunspots, also.
Taken at 6:06, just a few minutes after the transit started. You can just see Venus at the edge of the Sun at the 11:00 position.
Almost there.
The 'ink drop' effect: the small dark extension between the limb of the sun and the limb of Venus. As the clouds went by, it reminded me of those scary movies that begin with clouds racing across the moon and wolves howling in the background.
The best of the 15 photos I took.
I like this one, too. The wispy clouds give it an interesting look.
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