Best way to capture Venus...

[Kman]

Hello All,

Im new to this forum/astronomy and am just getting my head around the technical stuff with telescopes :P

My topic in focus is whats the best way to view and capture Venus's transit. Something we probably wont be able to view again in our lifetime.

My current equipment:

Meade 10" light bridge Dob.
26mm Meade wide angle eyepiece
Vixen LV 5mm eyepiece
Nikon D5100 18-55mm lens.

I realize that I need some solar filters on the Dob and also would need some sort of connector to attache the camera to the dob.

Im also trying to buy some O-III and UHC filter, (if I can find something that wont cost me my leg)... primarily for viewing nebulae, but I skimmed somewhere that they can be used for this event as well.. not sure, so I thought I put it up here. :)

Any help would be greatly appreciated and I hope I can get this all setup before the transit date.

Thanks
Kman

[Beluga]

Hey Kman!

I'm new in this forum as well.

The Venus transit in the coming two wks, I'm also focus on this event. As the experience in the year 2004, I aimed the polar axis last night and then I just used a BAADER AstroSolar in front of the lens of my telescope. Applied a 40mm PL eyepiece, it would be easy to find the sun in the telescope. Later, I choose some other eyepieces to fit the needs.

Considered that your telecope is a DOB, the polar alignment could be omitted. But you 10 inch DOB should have a long focus so that it would be a little bit difficult to find the target. You could also put a BAADER AstroSolar on the finder scope or just see the shadow of the OTA on the groud (when the shadow is almost round, the main tube is almost aim at the sun.) But please remember, it is necessary to cover the open tube with black cloth to prevent the sun light.^^

By the way, could you do me a favor about the observation? I'm an international student in Adelaide. My friends will observe the Venus transit in the Northern Hemisphere, we will going to measure the distance between the Sun and the Earth. Details is available here:
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=91054

With lots of thanks and regards!
Beluga

[Kman]

Hey Beluga,

Thanks for the info. I'll try to get a solar filter from where ever I can afford to find one. Please let me know if you know of a place or something.

If I can make it on time, which I really wanna, then I'll try to get the observations for you .. Also I'll ask my friends too :)

Also, I've replied on your post for more questions :)

Thanks
Kman

[Beluga]

Hey Kman!

Thank you very much for your reply!

About the badder filter..Umm, I really don't know where I can buy one here in Australia, but I found some links about badder Astro Solar for you to referencing:
http://www.backyard-astro.com/equipment/filters/baader.html

http://www.astro-physics.com/index.htm?products/accessories/solar_acc/astrosolar
If you still cannot find here to get a baader or some other filters, I could mail one for you from my hometown( the price would be cheap, $50 at most including the postages to get a A4 size badder sheet). Filters are extremely important and necessary to pretect your eyes and equipments:)

Kind regards,:)
Beluga

[Beluga]

Hey Kman!

Here I've found another solution to see the Sun.
http://10minuteastronomy.wordpress.com/2012/05/21/observing-report-the-2012-annular-eclipse/
:)
Cheers,
Beluga

[Kman]

Hey Beluga,

That's such a cool idea!

There's an astronomy club here that's trying to do something for the day. I'm trying to get in touch with them for this. I think they've got some equipment ready.

I've contacted someone for the filter sheet. If I don't hear from them soon enough, I'll hold back on buying more stuff for a bit and just tag along for the show.

:)

[Manav]

Can I use my canon 50D and ND8 filter?

[callingrohit]

Hi manav,

If your 50d has live view then yes u may use it as the focussing bit can be carried out from
Your computer. However you SHOULD NOT use the viewfinder to view the sun.

The best idea would be to grab a solar filter and create ur own filter to capture the sun.