One week later…

My Flickr gallery of the Transit of Venus (and of my drive up into the mountains & back) is finally online. Here are a few pictures that I haven’t posted on the blog before:

The spot in Carbondale, in the front yard of St. Vincent’s Church, where the Three Rivers Astronomy Club folks set up to watch the transit.

A view of the transit through one club member’s Hydrogen-alpha telescope. It was tough to get a good picture through that scope’s viewfinder, but if you look closely, you can see some prominences.

My video camera felt a pit puny next to all the telescopes.

A white-light view of the transit, and some sunspots, again as seen through a telescope’s viewfinder.

Warning: beer is NOT an approved solar filtration device. 🙂 Also note (as I did in a tweet) that this was Wisconsin beer, on the night of the Walker recall.

This is an approved solar filtration device — #14 welder’s glass. Telescopes in background.

As the evening wore on, somebody bought pizza, somebody broke out the beer, and we had a fun, laid-back transit party.

Sunset, as seen on my camcorder’s screen. “Bye, Venus! See you in 105 years!” said Frank Nadell as the planet’s silhouette set behind the mountains.

Full gallery here.

Also, don’t miss my Transit of Venus video, if you haven’t already seen it.

Previous transit posts here, here, here, here and here