Transit of Venus 2012 impressions

Hannover, Germany


Shortly before sunrise	Venus looks above the horizon	Venus is nearly unvisible

Best possible early photo	One of two pictures using a solar filter	Between contact 3 and contact 4 (4:49:49 UT)

The weather forecast had predicted a cold front with heavy rain. Thus we were lucky even to see the transit and to be able to take some pictures although measurements were unpossible. The cloud cover closed immediately before contact 4.

Udo Backhaus, Universität Duisburg-Essen, Germany

Ocho Rios, Jamaica

We attach some pictures of the transit of Venus and hope that these will meet your requirements. The pictures have been taken with a Fuji Finepix camera attached to a 25mm eyepiece of a 10" Newtonian reflector.
The sky was hazy and the last hour before sunset it was covered by thick clouds at the horizon over sea.
Time of ingress exactly 5.04 pm (17.04)
Errol Rickman, The Astronomical Association of Jamaica
Usedom, Germany

Sunrise behind clouds The third contact

After a 500 km travel from Osnabrück through Germany we had fine weather on the island of Usedom near the historical place of Peenemünde - as predicted by the weather forecasts. The sun rose from the sea with some low clouds, later the sight was very good. So we could take 3 photo pairs and triples at 3:00, 3:15 (sun still disturbed due to differential refraction) with 500 mm focal length and 4:30 UT with 1000 mm focal length. Unfortunately near the end some cirrus clouds disturbed the observations, therefore the 3rd contact could not be observed as planned. A report (in German) about our "expedition in modern times" can be found here.
Andreas Hänel, Museum am Schölerberg, Osnabrück, Germany
Tromsø, Norway

The equipment Shortly after contact 1 Contact 3

We, a group of pupils and a teacher from Berlin, Germany, observed the transit in Tromsø in its full length. We observed and measured the four contacts and have input the times into your database. The precision of the camara clock has been proofed ten days after the transit.
We took many photos. Unfortunately, we found this project too late. Thus, we have not taken twice exposed pictures.
J. Trebs, Berlin
Mauna Loa, Hawaii

Venus through the ocular Sunset over Hawaii after the transit

Early in the morning we started to Mauna Kea passing the Puu Huluhulu. But we were stopped at the Visitor's Center because the summit was totally crowded. Due to our voluminous equipment, food and clothes it was impossible for us to let us being transported by a shuttle bus. Therefore we decided to turn back and "climb up" (without four weel drive a real challenge!) to Mauna Loa. Its observatory is situated about 3400m above sealevel. This should be high enough over all clouds.
Although some clouds nevertheless came threateningly close we could observe the whole transit. The seeing, however, was quite bad. Therefore, I could only estimate the contact times. Due to these measurements I did not photograph the contacts. But perhaps some of our pictures will proof to be evaluable if we will be able to reconstruct their orientation by comparing the positions of the sunspots with those on professional photos.
A detailed report on our transit trip (in German) can be found in SciLogs.de

T. Häusler
Eforie Sud, Romania

You can see all our images taken at the Venus Transit at: http://www.lefo.ro/web_transit_6062012/index.html. We tried to take "double exposed" pictures but we made a mistake. We moved the refractor from the first to the second picture (second picture was taken after 120 sec). I attached the original pictures from 4:30 and 4:32.
F. Serbu


Sunrise behind clouds	The third contact


The equipment	Shortly after contact 1		Contact 3


Venus through the ocular	Sunset over Hawaii after the transit

		Editors:	Udo Backhaus	last update: 03.07.2012
			Stephan Breil

Internet Project

Observing, Photographing and Evaluating the

Transit of Venus, June 5/6th, 2012

Transit of Venus 2012 impressions