Hi and welcome to the venus transit 2004 observation discussion area!

Firstly we must point out the saftey guidlines at www.vt-2004.org/safety/

NEVER LOOK DIRECTLY AT THE SUN WITH UNPROTECTED EYES - THIS MAY CAUSE TOTAL AND PERMANENT BLINDNESS WITHIN SECONDS!
Always be sure to use proper optical filters to protect your eyes, or use a projection method. With all methods extreme care must be taken especially with children. CD's, sunglasses, old 'eclipse shades', smoked glass etc. must NOT be used.

An up to date list of Irish Astronomy Clubs holding events is available at www.venustransit.ie/clubs2.html

Feel free to post your observation reports, questions and observations here, you can also upload images to the image gallery at www.irishastronomy.org/user_resources/vi...les.php?folder_id=27

A special welcome to any new visitors to the site, we hope that you will stay around and more importantly stay interested in astronomy! This website is completely free and open to all, whether you are a member of a society or not, however if you would like to join an astronomy club a list of Irish Clubs is listed www.irishastronomy.org/ifas/members.php.

Some useful links:

www.vt-2004.org/central/ - Cloudy where you are? Stuck in the office? This site has live images to event and links to webcams in observatories all over the world where the transit is visible.

www.venustransit.ie - The Irish Venus Transit site. How to observe safley, a list of astronomy clubs, and a set of Irish observation reports from the 1882 transit are among the features of this site.

www.vt-2004.org/participate/ - From here you can register as an official participant in the European Southern Observatories project and submit timins and images of the event.

Clear Skies!

The Observing Starts Now! sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/c3/512/

Cheers,
~Al[/b]

Hi and welcome to the venus transit 2004 observation discussion area!Cheers,
~Al[/b]

The forecast for Tuesday appears to be light rain and cloudy. Is anyone considering grabbing a flight to Spain or some other sunny location on Monday for an overnight stay - travelling light with small scopes and binoculars? Unfortunately, it's too near to take advantage of a cheap Ryanair flight as it applies a 14-day window.

Gordon

Weather is clear on one website and cloudy on two others. It seems like the anticyclone (or whatever the correct term for it is!) lying in the atlantic is causing havoc for the predictions
www.west-cheshire.ac.uk/weather/visible.htm

Anyway I decided a long time ago to go to Italy for the transit, and my flight leaves in a few hours. I may get a chance to send update, but if not you'll have no posts from me until next week

Clear Skies & enjoy the transit!

Cheers,
~Al

Going abroad seems like a good idea at this stage for it.
I decided to stay here for this one and definitely go abroad for the next one 8 years time if I miss this one.

solar.spacew.com/sunnow/
Have resorted to this link, 100% cloud cover in Cork, nothing we can do, hope u guys/dolls up country have better results with transit of Venus
venus.obspm.fr/obspm.php?lang=en
Better go up and console poor Austin Hastings and gang at the flying club site
Charles

charles,
pratically 100 % cloud in dublin too. the sun was teasing me like it was going to appear at the start from behind the clouds. but since then i have had three glimpses through the clouds with my binomites. very easy to see in them. so i am not too upset i have seen something!!!!! . it seems to be very clear in london judging by the tv. when they started to talk about the astrological effect i tuned out.
stephen.

Very hazy skies here in Urlingford.
The morning started off fairly well but a small bit of cloud blocked my veief of 1st contact.
However, I did manage to see the black drop effect, second contact and the slight halo surounding Venus (i.e. the atmosphere)
At the moment the haze has got very thick with only the odd glimpse of the sun visible through the scope with solar filter.
Here a couple of pics taken so far.
The first was at 6.53 am whilst the other was taken at 7.49 am.


A very quick'n'dirty process has been done in photoshop to improve contrast and hue and to size down the file size.

Michael

Unfortunately here in West county Cork we are totally clouded out. What a disappoinmtment.
Keep them comming guys!

regards
Jouke

I'm totally clouded out now unfortunately.
Not looking promising for the remainder of the transit. :cry:

Sky News Active (press the red button) have continous live coverage of it.
Perfect conditions across most of the UK.

Michael

We're hazed out of it in Tullamore/Tyrrellspass too! Since I got up early this morning, I can see the sun's disc through the clouds at the best of times, but not bright or clear enough to show ANY detail at all...

:cry:

Seanie.

Hi all.

Poor conditions at Dunsink, but we managed to get some images:

www.dunsink.dias.ie/index.html

Brian

totally clouded out in dublin now. have seen it though 5 times for short periods mostly through my binomites and once through my 6 inch f/6 reflector with a solar filter on front and a mag of 40. at least i got to see something. seen most of it though on the news on the tv.
stephen.

Hate to add to the misery but nothing here in Wicklow but very hazy skies

I can get a very dim fuzzy image of the sun through the scope but not a hint of detail.

2 hours to go - gowan you clouds get outa here!

Just managed to get it on projection for about 2 minutes down here near Tullamore! stronger cloud cover is coming in alright. Its going too fast for me to get a photo yet though. I can cleatly see the 'dot' a few minutes ago!

Seanie.

Folks,

the latest from Tullamore:



it has just cleared for a few minutes, and I have just taken this picture about 2 minutes ago from time of post.

Seanie.

Delighted, went to the airport site at 0805, everybody had left & gone home due to bad observing conditions, went to Eugene a friend in Douglas who had a telescope at his work, with both our telescopes we had several good views of Venus between cloud breaks, then went to my Fathers, saw the transit form there, then back home where I had nice views just before Venus met with the rim of the Sun, very satisfied, one photo taken by not so professional means, ill post it later, thank God I wont have to wait another 122 years of so to view this spectacle
Charles Coughlan

well it is all over with done and dusted and all in all not too bad. got to see the venus about 8 times during the whole transit starting about 40 minutes after it began. it was amazing to watch it slowly creep across the disk. at least there was something to see through the heavy cloud in dublin. anyone else see it in dublin?.
stephen.

From my last post at 10:20am, it clouded out completely. I went to Tullamore to my fiancee's brother's house who wanted to see it. It was completely clouded out there too!
That was untill the clouds parted at 12:18pm, and I managed to video and photograph Venus at last contact, and disappear from the sun's limb - FANTASTIC! And lucky too!

Full report and pictures will be on www.tullamoreastronomy.com later in the day.

Well done to everyone who made the effort despite bad weather in parts. It mostly seems to have been a successful event over much of the country! At least we got our look in for the next 130 years!

Seanie.

I got about 10 mins. worth just before 10.00am,until
the screw on the RA drive jammed against the RA lock lever.
Venus looked very big at 110.Best view at 50,in a 4"f 10 synta.
roll on 2012,june5.
pat murray

Was that I.F.A.S I saw represented on the news just now for the transit of Venus, yuck of course it wasnt, I would have been pleasantly surprised had it been.
Whats wrong lads, missed out again or was it we dont know people in the right places or hav'nt paid them, I cant believe why we dont sell ourselves more publicly
Charles

hi everyone,

Good set up of telescopes in Sandymount from before 6am and Wally Mee had his hydrogen-alpha solar telescope which gave nice views. Cloudy at the beginning but then cleared sufficiently to let us see a lot of the event with just intermittent blank spells. A number of people stopped by throughout the morning -- I believe a few of the others moved on to Bray to get clearer conditions for the end of the transit.

Venus was also very easy naked-eye object with a number 14 grade welder's glass.

very nice in the Coronado binomites as well. Last view showed Venus as a notch on the limb of the Sun just after third contact.

other reports received;

Wexford:- Dermot Rafter and the Slaneyside Astronomers saw first and second contact with the famed "black drop" effect seen also. Images secured of the event which Dermot will send up.

Sicily, Italy:- spoke with Al White and he said it was cloudy yesterday but lovely clear spells for the transit -- halo seen around Venus (sunlight filtering through its atmosphere).

Madrid, Spain:- rang Paul Tipper (South Dublin A.S.) there and he has had lovely views at the observatory of a work colleague to the north of the city. Some thunderclouds building up so they might miss third contact. Black Drop lasted about three minutes . . . lots of digital images taken which he will have on his return to Ireland.

Rome, Italy:- Dan Lynch and Thomas Kinsella of South Dublin A.S. saw first and second contact at the Vatican but then signed off their text message with a cryptic "we've just been kicked out of the Vatican"!

Derek Buckley is watching it from the South of France but have not heard yet how he got on.

I think the naked-eye view really impressed me most because I was not really sure how visible it would be to us "eyeball only" observers. The black dot of the planet's silhouette was plainly seen by everyone with the welder's glass.

talk ltr,

John Flannery

We had agood turn out in Maynooth. We were set up inforont of the Physics building with a live feed from Holland projected on a screen inside for the times when we were clouded out. We had an ETX-90 with solar filter and we had a bigger telescope set up to project onto a screen.

We were mostly clouded out but there was a break in the coulds every 20 minutres or so so we got to see every stage clearly and for the last 20 minutes we had a prefect clear spell so we saw the Tear drop as well as the haze in the atmosphere and 3rd and 4th contact. Because we had the scopes set up on one of the main thuroughfares of the campus we had loads of people just stopping. Almost everyone had seen it on Sky news and just wanted to see it with their own eyes. Because we had the live hookup people hung around and waited for gaps in the clouds so I don't think anyone left un-happy.

All in all I am counting this as a success!

Hi all.

We got a good bit of clear skies from around 11 am till midday - we managed to see 3rd contact, clouded up after that. All the pics are now up on the Dunsink webpage:

www.dunsink.dias.ie

Thank God the weather just about cooperated!!!

Brian

In Galway we started observing at the Imbush Observatory at 6am under a partly cloudy sky but then just before 1st contact it clouded in and rained.After 7am we moved to the Tesco carpark. I think like us all club transit events were plagued with cloud but we did get several good breaks. We had 3 telescopes and Mike Redfern of NUIG brought along some really neat solar projectors he got in Spain, Clouds cleared just before 3rd contact gave us a final 10 minute burst. Overall 100 people attended, at least we saw it , even if not as much as we would have liked.

Well all

Here in Waterford Ist contact was clouded out but 2nd contact seen clearly. Black Dot not very apparent?

3rd and 4th clouded out.

A number of photos taken and when developed I'll post.

Photo's in see www.irishastronomy.org/user_resources/vi...les.php?folder_id=28

About 10 people and the local National School students turned up and most (and all the kids) got a view.

My thanks to Eugene, Jim & Kenny

Conor