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Transit of Mercury, 11 November 2019, and a Transit of Venus and Some Sunspots from 2012

Above: Transit of Mercury, November 11, 2019 as I saw it from Northern Virginia using a 4.5 inch reflector with image projected onto a white paper. Elisa took the picture with her I-phone. Arrow shows Mercury. I almost missed it — Billy texted from college to remind me of the big event.

Above: Transit of Venus June 6, 2012 as seen from Northern Virginia. Billy (age 13) took the picture with his I-phone 4. Venus is much bigger, much closer and much easier to see. Near the bottom edge of the solar disc.

Above; Billy on November 12, 2011 with the 4.5 inch Tasco Reflector that was used on BOTH the Venus and Mercury transits (we projected the image on paper). On this day we were using our newfound solar photography expertise to take a picture of sunspots (our picture below).

Ah, those were the days! Many spots back then. None now.

Daytime Occultation of Venus TODAY! LUNCHTIME (on East Coast)

Thanks to my Michael EI0CL for alerting us to this. It will happen today, very conveniently at lunchtime on the East Coast of North America. I may have to bring my Soviet binoculars to work.

Details here: http://spaceweather.com/

It has already been a nice day for astronomy here in the wilds of Northern Virgina. National Public Radio on Sunday alerted me to the fact that Mars is high in the pre-dawn sky. Our friend Armand e-mailed alerting me to possible clear skies this morning. The leaves are down and no longer obstructing my view of the Southern sky. With my six inch telescope I got a very nice view of Jupiter and the four Galilean moons. We are pretty far away from Mars at this point, so I could see no surface feaures, but it is always nice to see that distinctively red disk. And Venus is poised to disappear behind the moon.

Good luck with Venus and the Moon. Please send in reports.

And speaking of occultations, check this one out (thanks to Farhan for the alert):

The moon passed between Nasa’s Deep Space Climate Observatory and the Earth, allowing the satellite to capture this rare image of the moon’s far side in full sunlight. We normally don’t see this side of the moon. As the moon is tidally locked to the earth and doesn’t rotate, we only ever see the one face from the earth. Awesome shot!

Poor Conditions: SFI 89. Venus Transit Hero

There’s today’s image from SOHO. Pretty barren. That’s why conditions on the HF bands are so poor today.

While looking for this I came across this account of Venus Transit Heroism:

In the days of heroic astronomy, Chappe d’Autoroches not only risked his life twice to obtain critical, new knowledge from transits of Venus, but gave his life to help others in dire need. Here is his tale from the h2g2 web site in an article entitled “Forgotten Male Astronomers:” A French expedition led by Jean-Baptiste Chappe d’Autoroche (1728 – 69) went to Tobolsk, Siberia, to record the 1761 Venus transit. The team survived a treacherous river crossing and a lengthy journey through difficult, boggy conditions, eventually arriving at their destination just six days before the transit was due. Just before the transit, Jean-Baptiste was attacked by some of the locals, who believed he had caused unusually severe spring floods by interfering with the Sun. Cossack guards managed to save the team of astronomers, who eventually managed to make good observations of the Venus transit.

The French Academy were so pleased with the success of his mission that they engaged Jean-Baptiste to record the next expected Venus transit, due in 1769. He specified that he would travel anywhere in the world as long as the temperature wouldn’t be below freezing. Tragically, when Jean-Baptiste and his team arrived at Vera Cruz in Mexico, they found themselves in the middle of a plague [yellow fever] epidemic. Instead of moving on to a safer place, the team decided to remain and help care for the sick villagers.

Even though he was mortally ill, Jean-Baptiste managed to record astronomical observations to establish the latitude and longitude of the site. These recordings were vital for the calculations of the astronomers back home in France, and were made with an astonishing accuracy, given the hazardous conditions in which the data were gathered. The observations they made provided some of the best data of the 1769 transit. Jean-Baptiste died of a fever just after the transit, aged 41 years.

A longer and more detailed version of these events can be found here: www.americanscientist.org

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Transit of Venus

Yesterday afternoon at around 5:55 pm local time I was pedaling along the Washington and Old Dominion bike trail, on my way home from work. I was pedaling a little faster than normal because I wanted to try to see the transit of Venus. I came across a group of amateur astronomers who had set up their scopes alongside the trail — they were nervously looking at their watches and the clouds. I told them that I was going to set up my scope too. “Hurry up! You’ll miss it! It starts at 6:04!” I pedaled even faster.

The cloud cover was fairly thick, but just as I pulled into my driveway, the clouds broke and sunshine filled the front yard. I quickly set up the ‘scope and got the sun in the field of view. First I saw sunspots — lots of them. Then, sure enough, off near the rim was the unmistakeable shadow of Venus. Billy took the picture (above) with his I-phone 4. The neighbors and all the kids in the neighborhood came over and had a look. It was all very cool. Mission accomplished.