Post by RobbW on Jun 5, 2012 23:35:26 GMT -6
Tonight, June 5, 2012, marked a rare and significant astronomical event: the Transit of Venus!
First, I would like to extend my sincerest thanks and gratitude to Peggy Meyer Hernandez! She is the director at the U-46 Planetarium in Elgin, IL. Peggy had asked me to come out to the planetarium and help share this event with the public. She organized everything, and we had a great show!
I showed up at the planetarium a little after 4pm to start setting up. I trudged all my astro gear up the big hill and staked out my spot. Being a little OCD, it took me a while to get everything assembled and lined up. Who knew it would be so hard to polar-align a telescope on an equatorial mount during the daylight?! After a bit of fidgeting, I had everything up and running.
For the transit, I built a DIY sun funnel. Here it is shortly after I made it a couple weeks ago. I was doing a quick test to make sure everything worked properly. This was before I had it spit-polished and pretty for the public event!
Here’s my sun funnel all shiny and pretty making its public debut at the transit party:
There were several minutes to wait before the transit officially began. So, I kept busy projecting the image of the Sun and answering questions about sunspots, the transit, night-sky observing, and my website. I was wearing my new, official OneDarkSky t-shirt (sorry no pic), and it elicited many questions, as was intended.
Folks patiently waited for the transit to begin. Some were taking a few moments to check out the Sun and her spots with the solar eclipse glasses the planetarium was selling at the event:
Others took time to enjoy the Sun in all her glory on the Sun funnel before the crowds started to move in:
A few others had brought along their scopes for the event, too. Russ from the Fox Valley Sky Watchers brought along a vintage orange-tube Celestron C8 telescope with a full-aperture glass solar filter. He also set up what appeared to be a 4” spotting scope with a solar filter. Mark, who I also believe was from the Fox Valley Sky Watchers (please forgive me if I am wrong. I met so many people tonight.), brought out a very long, very big, antique refractor telescope. Mark’s scope was set up for solar projection and provided a bigger image of the event. Peggy Hernandez and Paula Lambertz from the U-46 Planetarium were working a couple Edmunds Astronscan telescopes for the crowd.
The crowd started to swell as anticipation of first contact grew every passing minute:
At approximately 5:05 pm on my iPod Touch, I took a look at the Sun funnel and spotted just the slightest morsel of Venus starting to edge onto the solar disk. I announced that “it had begun!” Immediately, the throngs started gathering at the scopes to take a peek.
Long lines formed at the scopes, and folks were posing by the Sun funnel to get their pics taken with this rare event. I wanted pics, too, but settled for a side-shot while letting the public get a good view. You can just make out Venus edging about halway onto the far limb of the Sun in this shot:
While folks enjoyed the views at the scopes, I took the opportunity to snap a couple of crowd pics. Everyone was nice and accommodating and waved for the geeky astro dude with the camera!
First, the left side:
Then, the right side. I had to chide a couple of folks on the right side to wave for me, but most were eager to oblige:
Hey! Is that Clay Aiken waving from the ground in that shot?!?!
Checking back on my Sun funnel, I see that Venus has finally made her way fully into the Sun’s disk. Ingress (first and second contact) is complete!
Throughout the evening I met many, many people who were interested in all different aspects of astronomy. I had such a great time talking with everyone and having wonderful conversations. We talked about everything from the history and future of Venus transits to the incomprehensible size of the universe. From light pollution and ways to control it to the wildly imaginative monster aliens that might be found on exo-planets.
While most everybody who has a website does everything they can to advertise it and get the word out, it was still a shock to me just how many people had been to my site and were at the transit event because of me. It was a humbling experience to know I was actually making an impact with getting people to look at our skies!
Speaking of getting the word out, another BIG thanks goes out to Janelle Walker (no relation to me, really!), a reporter from The Courier-News. She helped get a brief story into the newspaper to advertise the event at the planetarium. It was so great to finally meet her after she wrote up an AWESOME front-page story about light pollution back in February (click here for the news article). Also thanks to Mike, who came out to photograph the event for The Courier-News!
I was thrilled to meet so many people at the event. It was especially nice to meet little Estee! Estee is the daughter of my hairstylist. Nell is the owner/operator of Salon Couture in downtown Elgin, and she does a great job! Here are the two of them. Aren’t they so cute together?!?!
Let’s head back to the Sun funnel and check on Venus’ progress. This is about an hour into the transit. You can see a good group of sunspots in the center-right of the disk in this image:
Throughout the whole evening, we had many more people show up to get a look at Venus and witness this rare event. As mentioned before, many took photos of the Sun’s image in my Sun funnel and many even posed WITH the Sun funnel. I encouraged folks to get in all the pics they could as none of us would ever see a Venus transit again!
I was so busy mingling with the crowd that I never took the time to try and get a count of how many people showed up for the event. I only have a couple pieces of circumstantial evidence from which to estimate numbers. It was definitely in the hundreds, though! From what I was told, the U-46 Planetarium had purchased 500 solar eclipse glasses to sell at the event. They sold out EVERY pair. And, of course, not EVERYONE who attended bought a pair of glasses. Also, I was told by a reporter that approximately 1,000 people stopped by throughout the entire evening. I’ll try to get an official tally and post any corrections to this story.
Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. We had a picture-perfect day for the transit, and a great time was enjoyed by all. The U-46 Planetarium provided a wonderful venue for the event, and the view was spectacular until the sun started to dip down into the trees, as this next photo from Janelle Walker shows. This turned out to be a freaking awesome picture of the setting sun with Venus nearly halfway through its transit:
Finally, at roughly 8:15 pm, we lost the Sun completely to the infamous “tree nebula!”
What a great night this was! I will never forget this event. I want to thank everyone who came out and participated.
Thank you, and Clear Skies!!!
First, I would like to extend my sincerest thanks and gratitude to Peggy Meyer Hernandez! She is the director at the U-46 Planetarium in Elgin, IL. Peggy had asked me to come out to the planetarium and help share this event with the public. She organized everything, and we had a great show!
I showed up at the planetarium a little after 4pm to start setting up. I trudged all my astro gear up the big hill and staked out my spot. Being a little OCD, it took me a while to get everything assembled and lined up. Who knew it would be so hard to polar-align a telescope on an equatorial mount during the daylight?! After a bit of fidgeting, I had everything up and running.
For the transit, I built a DIY sun funnel. Here it is shortly after I made it a couple weeks ago. I was doing a quick test to make sure everything worked properly. This was before I had it spit-polished and pretty for the public event!
Here’s my sun funnel all shiny and pretty making its public debut at the transit party:
There were several minutes to wait before the transit officially began. So, I kept busy projecting the image of the Sun and answering questions about sunspots, the transit, night-sky observing, and my website. I was wearing my new, official OneDarkSky t-shirt (sorry no pic), and it elicited many questions, as was intended.
Folks patiently waited for the transit to begin. Some were taking a few moments to check out the Sun and her spots with the solar eclipse glasses the planetarium was selling at the event:
Others took time to enjoy the Sun in all her glory on the Sun funnel before the crowds started to move in:
A few others had brought along their scopes for the event, too. Russ from the Fox Valley Sky Watchers brought along a vintage orange-tube Celestron C8 telescope with a full-aperture glass solar filter. He also set up what appeared to be a 4” spotting scope with a solar filter. Mark, who I also believe was from the Fox Valley Sky Watchers (please forgive me if I am wrong. I met so many people tonight.), brought out a very long, very big, antique refractor telescope. Mark’s scope was set up for solar projection and provided a bigger image of the event. Peggy Hernandez and Paula Lambertz from the U-46 Planetarium were working a couple Edmunds Astronscan telescopes for the crowd.
The crowd started to swell as anticipation of first contact grew every passing minute:
At approximately 5:05 pm on my iPod Touch, I took a look at the Sun funnel and spotted just the slightest morsel of Venus starting to edge onto the solar disk. I announced that “it had begun!” Immediately, the throngs started gathering at the scopes to take a peek.
Long lines formed at the scopes, and folks were posing by the Sun funnel to get their pics taken with this rare event. I wanted pics, too, but settled for a side-shot while letting the public get a good view. You can just make out Venus edging about halway onto the far limb of the Sun in this shot:
While folks enjoyed the views at the scopes, I took the opportunity to snap a couple of crowd pics. Everyone was nice and accommodating and waved for the geeky astro dude with the camera!
First, the left side:
Then, the right side. I had to chide a couple of folks on the right side to wave for me, but most were eager to oblige:
Hey! Is that Clay Aiken waving from the ground in that shot?!?!
Checking back on my Sun funnel, I see that Venus has finally made her way fully into the Sun’s disk. Ingress (first and second contact) is complete!
Throughout the evening I met many, many people who were interested in all different aspects of astronomy. I had such a great time talking with everyone and having wonderful conversations. We talked about everything from the history and future of Venus transits to the incomprehensible size of the universe. From light pollution and ways to control it to the wildly imaginative monster aliens that might be found on exo-planets.
While most everybody who has a website does everything they can to advertise it and get the word out, it was still a shock to me just how many people had been to my site and were at the transit event because of me. It was a humbling experience to know I was actually making an impact with getting people to look at our skies!
Speaking of getting the word out, another BIG thanks goes out to Janelle Walker (no relation to me, really!), a reporter from The Courier-News. She helped get a brief story into the newspaper to advertise the event at the planetarium. It was so great to finally meet her after she wrote up an AWESOME front-page story about light pollution back in February (click here for the news article). Also thanks to Mike, who came out to photograph the event for The Courier-News!
I was thrilled to meet so many people at the event. It was especially nice to meet little Estee! Estee is the daughter of my hairstylist. Nell is the owner/operator of Salon Couture in downtown Elgin, and she does a great job! Here are the two of them. Aren’t they so cute together?!?!
Let’s head back to the Sun funnel and check on Venus’ progress. This is about an hour into the transit. You can see a good group of sunspots in the center-right of the disk in this image:
Throughout the whole evening, we had many more people show up to get a look at Venus and witness this rare event. As mentioned before, many took photos of the Sun’s image in my Sun funnel and many even posed WITH the Sun funnel. I encouraged folks to get in all the pics they could as none of us would ever see a Venus transit again!
I was so busy mingling with the crowd that I never took the time to try and get a count of how many people showed up for the event. I only have a couple pieces of circumstantial evidence from which to estimate numbers. It was definitely in the hundreds, though! From what I was told, the U-46 Planetarium had purchased 500 solar eclipse glasses to sell at the event. They sold out EVERY pair. And, of course, not EVERYONE who attended bought a pair of glasses. Also, I was told by a reporter that approximately 1,000 people stopped by throughout the entire evening. I’ll try to get an official tally and post any corrections to this story.
Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. We had a picture-perfect day for the transit, and a great time was enjoyed by all. The U-46 Planetarium provided a wonderful venue for the event, and the view was spectacular until the sun started to dip down into the trees, as this next photo from Janelle Walker shows. This turned out to be a freaking awesome picture of the setting sun with Venus nearly halfway through its transit:
Finally, at roughly 8:15 pm, we lost the Sun completely to the infamous “tree nebula!”
What a great night this was! I will never forget this event. I want to thank everyone who came out and participated.
Thank you, and Clear Skies!!!
