NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Keith Williams
Date: 2004 Jun 8, 11:13 +0300
I guess to the envy of all, from Kuwait I
can report 100% clear sky and a perfect view for as long as I could stand –
starting about 0820 local time. I used my sextant with a 4X scope and had a
perfect view of a little dot creeping onto the surface at about 0530 using clockface description. It’s a tiny little thing, this
planet Venus, but as Lee says, very distinct. Hope we all remember Captain Cook
today.
I tried what seems a neat trick from “Femy”, a weather lady on CNN – cover a mirror
with paper thru which one small hole has been made, to project a reflection of
the sun…for me the problem was that I had to look at the reflection on a
surface which was already very highly lit by ambient light, so I had to squint
against that and couldn’t make out the dot.
Binos at 7X power needed a firm support, I couldn’t
keep the image steady enough to see the dot on my paper “screen”.
-----Original Message-----
From: Navigation Mailing List
[mailto:NAVIGATION-L@LISTSERV.WEBKAHUNA.COM] On
Behalf Of Lee Martin
Sent: Tuesday, 8 June 2004 09:57
To:
NAVIGATION-L@LISTSERV.WEBKAHUNA.COM
Subject: My View of the Transit of
Venus
It has been drought here in southern
NSW, Australia. Total of 40mm of rain in the last 6 months, crystal clear days
and nights, week after week as we slip into winter.
Today, low cloud, building and
breaking during the day. The transit commenced around 3.14.33pm local time
(EST)....heavy cloud blocked all view.
Intermittent rays of sunshine for
the next hour and a bit. Teasing.
Then at around 4.20pm, the clouds
around the sun cleared for a little less than 5 minutes. Only time
enough to take in the phenomena. An absolutely brilliant view of the
transit through my sextant telescope and shades. While I had looked at
animations of the transit, I had not expected the shape of venus to be so
"definite" on the sun's surface.
At 4.30 the sun disappeared
completely behind clouds and then the local hills.
So, how did others fare?
Lee Martin