Venus Transit 2012

Reports are coming in of a possible sighting this morning of a strange group of people wandering around a damp and misty car park on the hills above the village of Carncastle. Remnants of this group were later seen in the car park across from the Ballygalley Castle Hotel. Apparently there have also been sightings of similar groups in other parts of Ireland

Early reports postulated that this group may have been some confused druids who had gathered rather too early for the summer solstice, but later witnesses claim to have heard murmerings about the planet Venus. Now, some experts are speculating that it may have been a tribe of those melancholy, rarely-sighted creatures known as amateur astronomers.

The obviously delusional group quickly dispersed as the rain continued to pelt down, a couple of stragglers were quietly shepherded home to their warm beds by a chieftan from another tribe, who was himself out searching for stray members of his own flock.

Great shots Bren and Martin,
I'm gutted we missed it, we'll have to settle for the transit of mercury in 2016

Hi,

The weather has been awful (with the remnant of tropical storm Beryl) here in MA for the last few days.

The 5th June was no better, with thick cloud and rain. We were pouring (pun intended) over the weather maps, trying to find an elusive edge or hole in the extensive cloud system. Initially, it looked as if we needed to drive to southern New Jersey, but then that prospect clouded over. We were nearly giving up in despair. Then it seemed better towards Burlington, Vermont and on into the St Lawrence river valley. Anyway, after a long drive over the Green Mountains, we were presented with a wonderful vista of the sky clearing in the north-west. Arrived at our observing site on the shores of Lake Champlain with just 5 minutes to spare before first contact!

After a frantic set up of the telescope, we saw first contact. The Pronto is well named.

Venus was a wonderful sight with a fairly large disc at 69x. It was so dark compared to the sunspots. As just brought one scope, we kept swaping the eyepiece and the camera! Just using eclipse glasses Venus was easy enough, but not very striking. I have put up one quick picture on the website:
Variable Star Nights

So pretty exhausted now, after the 460 mile (740km) round trip. But it was worth it.

John & Sara

Well done Martin, very nice image. Mike

Clouded out here in Monasterevin.
Fantastic views however with the SDO made up for it.

We had bad weather over most of the Eastern seaboard here. We had set up two scopes at work and hoped for the best. Cyclonic conditions the night before with heavy wind and rain. Clouded over with showers in the morning when it started. But we did get some sucker holes in the clouds every 5 to 10 minutes for 60 seconds or so. Anyone who was prepared to wait for ten minutes got to see the transit but only for a few seconds each. About 150 colleagues got to see it who otherwise would not have bothered. The anticipation of a blue patch of sky really added to the event making it a lot of fun for all concerned .Very happy how it went overall despite the crap weather.