a spot on the sun

I did a trial run of my venus transit setup. Trial runs and testing has been ingrained in my engineer thinking. Monday afternoon was nice and clear for the trial run. Luckily the day of the Venus Transit, Tuesday, was also clear and mild. 

The first thing I discovered during my trial run was that at about 5PM this time of year our property is almost completely in the shade. No sun watching with trees and houses in the way.

I found a sunny spot out near our mailbox and set-up my binocular projection configuration (last Friday’s post had a link that described this configuration). My daughter and I could see 3 Sunspots. Later I checked online and found the Sun’s picture of the day. The online space telescope image had more than 3 spots but the 3 largest ones were in the same arrangement we observed. 

If I had used a real tripod I would have eliminated the problem of parts jiggling which caused the image to blur. I don’t own a tripod but I found a clamp to fix the binocular to a step stool. Taking a picture of the Sun’s image wasn’t very easy because the light breeze seem to move the cardboard just as I was about to click the picture button. Occasional focus problems were minor.  Overall the transit event was very enjoyable and easy to watch.

The very beginning of Venus crossing on the Sun's image - below.  Notice the small black spot on the bottom edge of the Sun.

The transit had just start when I called a neighbor to take a look. He had been wondering what I was doing. Before my daughter returned from a late afternoon appointment, I had shown Venus on the Sun’s image to about 5 neighborhood kids and a few adults too. 

Apparently the two girls across the street were impressed enough that they talked their grandfather into driving over to see it.  It's great to see kids excited about space.

Note the shape of the sun appears egg shaped in some pictures because of the angle of the camera and the cardboard.

Since the sun was getting close to going behind a tree on our street. My daughter and I decided to move to a nearby small park. We shared our Venus/Sun image with even more people at the park.

I'm a regular visitor of Unknown Mami's SIMC photo collection.  You should check her photo links (click the box).