Last tips

Summary and last hints

Only a few hours until the transit. Time for a little executive summary and some last advices!

Preparation
- Don't forget
  - your pair of solar filter for observing without magnification,
  - the solar filters for the binocular (for observing) and for the telecope (for photographing),
  - paper and pencil for writing a log.
- Essential is an exactly going clock! Even radio controlled clocks should be controlled an advance (with heavens above, for instance).
- A timer will proof to be very useful.
During the transit
- Besides of your measurements and your observing through binoculars and telescopes you should use your naked eyes. For instance, it is worth to project the Sun with a small pinhole in a sheet of paper: The projected image of the Sun will show a little black circle! To find natural sunspots generated for instance by the leaves of large trees which show Venus will be even more impressive (see our 2004 impressions)
Contact times
- The observed contact times should be transferred as soon as possible. In case of using the phone app your results will be transferred automatically. (These data will be transferred to our project shortly after the transit.) In the other case please input your results into our page for exchanging contact times. These data will be accessible promptly. By copying the data of all participants into our worksheets (evaluationofcontacttimes1+2.xls, for instance) you will be able to determine the distance to the Sun by combining your results with those of others.

Photographing

In advance, adjust the internal clock of your camera exactly!
You should be experienced with the suitable exposure time for your optical system.
For comparing your pictures with those of other participants in order to determine the Astronomical Unit
- the pictures must have been taken simultaneously (you can find our proposals in the schedule for photographing.)
- the orientation of the pictures must be known exactly. Our related proposal is to exposure two pictures with fixed camera (tripod!) and with time differences of about 150s.
The pairs of pictures should be combined and after the transit evaluated with the program evaltransitpicts.(
Single positions of Venus on the Sun's disc can be transferred via our page for exchanging photographing data where you may upload typical pictures, too. Series of position data can be transferred as worksheet.
Even in this project the input data off all participants will be accessible immediately via the same data exchange page.

		Editors:	Udo Backhaus	last update: last update: 2020-03-19
			Stephan Breil