[TriLUG] OT: Transit of Venus (ToV)

[Jeremy Portzer]

On 6/5/2012 8:04 PM, Glenn Hennessee wrote:
> The Natural Science Museum for me.
>
> On Mon, Jun 4, 2012 at 6:44 PM, Chris Short<chris.short at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> My weather forecasts all say partly cloudy which is good enough for
>> me. As far as South Carolina goes I think there really isn't much to
>> say other than lakes and coastal areas from my POV.
>>
>> The Museum of Natural Sciences in downtown Raleigh and the Morehead
>> Planitarium in Chapel Hill both have free events going on tomorrow for
>> the Venus transit. I'll be attending the one in downtown Raleigh since
>> I have no astronomy equipment whatsoever that's suitable for this
>> event.
>>
I saw the transit in the morning here in Sydney, Australia.  We had a 
view of all four contacts, but requiring viewing equipment at all 
times.  I tried to view it with a pinhole camera (projector really) that 
I built from a shoebox, and while it worked well to display an image of 
the sun, I couldn't be sure whether I was really seeing the small dot of 
the transit, or imagining things based on little bits of dust on the 
projector "screen."  I still managed to attract attention from 
passers-by however, holding a shoebox over my shoulder in the middle of 
the city :)  It got a lot of news coverage here though, so most people 
knew what I was up to I think.  There were official viewings at the 
local observatories but they sold tickets and filled up fast.

Joseph, did you end up seeing it in SC?  The nice thing for you guys 
about seeing it at sunset, is that you might have gotten a glimpse after 
the sun was low enough in the sky to view directly without any equipment 
(or just normal sunglasses).

--Jeremy