Transit of Venus

[ashstralia]

i set up my little vixen 80mm refractor and took a couple of pics; only 'cause it's the last time we'll see a venus transit.

the aussie media have been banging on all week about how it was capt. cook's journey to tahiti in the 1760's which led to the discovery of 'terra australis', but in fact the dutch had been on the west coast a couple of hundred years earlier.

[vandeleur]

ash u gonna post the pics ?

[vandeleur]

some decent pics on the bbc news website , pics people have sent in http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-18336717

[ashstralia]

ash u gonna post the pics ?

tbh mate they're pretty underwhelming. much better ones here.

[Seshmeister]

i set up my little vixen 80mm refractor and took a couple of pics; only 'cause it's the last time we'll see a venus transit.

the aussie media have been banging on all week about how it was capt. cook's journey to tahiti in the 1760's which led to the discovery of 'terra australis', but in fact the dutch had been on the west coast a couple of hundred years earlier.

Yeah but they just smoked a couple of joints, fucked a few aborigines and wandered off - we created a massive prison island 'Escape From New York' style.

[ashstralia]

what's this 'we' business?

[katina]

Rain here too and I miss another thing.

Worst was the total solar eclipse in 1999 which was completely cloudy, it just went dark.

Next one here is in 2090...

It´s a matter of luck.
I was lucky only two times with astronomical observations. One was very funny, at least for me, I apologize in advance for my english......

I mentioned before I was very lucky to watch the total Moon Eclipse on January 2000.

I was on holidays at Craigendarroch Lodge, Ballater, Scotland, with my buddy, no chance to go outdoors because of the winter storm and snow. At night he opened a Lochnagar Single Malt (we visited the distillery a couple of days before), and began to drink....I only drink white spirits (vodka, gin, white tequila)....after a couple of hours he said: we are in the Highlands, come on give it a try!.
O.K. I drank 2 glasses....and I went to bed thinking I was going to have a headache in the morning.

The bed was in front of a large window, and because of the spirit I fell asleep in a awkward position, upright with my head hanging out off the mattress, at some point, the neck pain made me open my eyes .........in front of me was a huge Full Moon and a clear sky, it was funny because of my position upside down, the Moon was the same as I watch from the Southern Hemisphere, and I didn´t move.

But suddenly and slowly, the Moon began to be covered from one side....Holly Shit!!! I am totally drunk, I am allucinating!! but I was mesmerized and I watched it until the moon was totally covered and dissapeared into darkness......and I fell asleep.

In the morning I had a headache, I told my buddy that I would never drink a Single Malt in my life again, I didn´t tell him of my strange nightmare because I was a little embarrassed, and while having breakfast and reading the newspaper I saw the title "Total Moon Eclipse", so I began to laugh very loud and pointing to the newspaper and the photo, I told my buddy " I watched the Eclipse"!!!!
I couldn´t stop laughing, my buddy was astonished, he loves astronomy, and asked me "why you didn´t wake me up???" I answered, that I thought I was drunk and allucinating because of the Lochnagar Single Malt!!!

It was just luck, but I am eternally greatfull to Lochnagar Distillery, I laugh each time I recall the amazing Full Moon Eclipse of January 2000!!!

[ZahZoo]

what's this 'we' business?

Beside being the Carl Sagan of the Roth Army... Sesh still believes the British Empire owns/rules most of the world... Including Venus...

[Hardrock69]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/nasa-provides-rare-images-transit-venus-144840865.html

[Seshmeister]

what's this 'we' business?

The wind up just didn't seem to sound right without it...

[ashstralia]

[IceCreamBlondie]

Thanks for the pics, interesting.

[Hardrock69]

Cool video. Dig technology!

[katina]

Thanks for sharing the Transit of Venus.

[Seshmeister]

The strange thing was how close Venus looks to the sun in a lot of the pictures when it is 67 million miles away from it.