It was clear for most of the transit with only some sparse cloud arriving just in time to make me sweat over third contact. Anyway I've tried to merge all my images into a nice line although there is one that has popped out for some reason... read into that I didn't stack it properly!!
Anyway I had a great day at home - I've also added some other images for posterity...
I should point out that I dropped the timing of my images to 18 minute intervals at the end so that I could get third contact. Unfortunately it then put the Venus images close together! Oh well, there's always next time.... for my great-grand kids (I best get my kids out of school first)!!
Looks great,I must have had the most terrible misfunction of equipment,I saw Venus exit the same side as it came in from,it did not go all the way across like your view,What location were you at??
Looks great,I must have had the most terrible misfunction of equipment,I saw Venus exit the same side as it came in from,it did not go all the way across like your view,What location were you at??
Chris,
I imaged from Robertson, 12kms south of Brisbane. My equitorial mount kept the orientation of the Sun, and hence Venus, the same throughout the Transit so Venus' path looked like a straight line. However if you used a non-equitorial mount like a tripod Venus would look like it exited from the same side that it came in. I think the path I saw on a simulator was a loop about a quarter of the way in to the Sun and then back out.
I imaged from Robertson, 12kms south of Brisbane. My equitorial mount kept the orientation of the Sun, and hence Venus, the same throughout the Transit so Venus' path looked like a straight line. However if you used a non-equitorial mount like a tripod Venus would look like it exited from the same side that it came in. I think the path I saw on a simulator was a loop about a quarter of the way in to the Sun and then back out.
Does this make sense?
Cheers,
Mario
I used an EQ mount tracking the sun too,lined it all up and never touched gear,just turned on the camera and it took all the images,I had another three scopes all on EQ tracking mounts,Venus appeared to go a 1/4 in the sun,and then go back the way it came.Your view looks like it went right across.So will stack all my images-I image it would come out,as it venus went right across??
I used an EQ mount tracking the sun too,lined it all up and never touched gear,just turned on the camera and it took all the images,I had another three scopes all on EQ tracking mounts,Venus appeared to go a 1/4 in the sun,and then go back the way it came.Your view looks like it went right across.So will stack all my images-I image it would come out,as it venus went right across??
Well I'm scratching my head as to what the problem could be then! The only time I've had to rotate was a 180 degree shift on my images post meridian flip. Other than that it was just a straight sum in GIMP. What do your sun spots do - do they rotate at all?
Great stuff Mario!
I am very happy with what I got but a shot every 20 mins would have been sweet - I was managing 2 scopes and observed quite a bit!
Thanks Matt!
I had a timer set on the phone to remind me to take the image as I was quite mesmerised by the whole thing just looking at the screen!!
It was a great day only marred once when, just before going out to do some errands, my wife informed me that she'd got me some sushi for lunch and it was in the fridge. Unfortunately she forgot to mention that one of the rolls was for her!! What a surprise when she went to get hers only to discover I'd eaten all the sushi!! Oh how we laughed......
Well this is not an outcome of this image that I'd even contemplated!!
I'd also posted this image on my Astrobin page and because of that I was contacted by a member of a French astronomy society who asked if he could use my timings of 2nd and 3rd contact in conjunction with their 3rd contact timing to calculate the Sun-Earth distance.
I happily agreed and the calculated value was 154,000,000 kms - not bad!! Here's the link to the appropriate page on their website...
