[click on image to enlarge]
Bob and Carol are friends of mine. They teamed up to create an excellent photograph of Tuesday night's Venus Transit. Bob is our local science guru, and he used this technique to cast the image of the sun onto a piece of white cardboard. Carol snapped the pic with her compact point & shoot. Theirs is the largest globe in this collage of four sun pics. See the dot at the very bottom? That's not the sun's bellybutton; that's Venus!I stumbled onto the other three images while fiddling with the camera as I tried to snap a pic of the sun with my Pentax K-x, a 55mm lens, and a #850 Infrared filter. I shot the pics in raw, cropped aggressively, and then used Picasa to try to correct the color balance. That first picture, the magenta ring with psychedelic focal zoom is actually closer to the original, unedited pics than my yellower suns. Again, special thanks to Carol for letting me download her photograph!
The Transit of Venus happened eight years ago in 2004 and then again just this week, but won't appear again for another 105 years. That's because Venus' orbit has a slightly different tilt than the earth's.
Friends, I couldn't capture the kind of image I had hoped for, but it was fun to try. I hope to fiddle around again with sun pictures and see what develops.
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5 comments:
We missed the transit completely, so I appreciate your photos.
Did I already comment on this? I must be losing my mind. What's left of it, that is.
I didn't actually have an opportunity to see the transit, but there was lots on the TV news about it. Fascinating stuff.
the supermoon was obscured by clouds. the solar eclipse was in the wrong part of the world. the transit of venus was also obscured by clouds. i am a bit put out by missing all these fun astronomical things. but i am glad you and your friend are sharing pictures. thanks!
I'll have a look in 105 yrs time - then my friend,lol.
Nice work
George, I this episode sparked an interest in seeing whether I will be able to take pictures of the sun. I'll have to look into that, and find out whether it is a realistic possibility for me.
I have been amazed at the NASA pics of Venus' transit across the path of the sun, as well as some of the other images I've googled. Shammy, we are so blessed to be able to see this with the help of filters and such, so that we do not go blind trying to make these observations.
I hear you, Lime. Sometimes I would almost rather not hear what I missed. But I'm glad to see that you have been doing very well with Boom Boom. I always look forward to see what you have posted.
In 105 years Imac, I hope you and I can see even greater things.
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