Eppur si muove

[fivemack]

Got up at 5:30 this morning, set up my telescope, lashed a pair of binoculars to the back with electrician's tape, and projected the transit of Venus onto bits of white paper.

At least, the first hour of it, from a tiny indent in the side of the sun at about 0620 until Venus was 1.5 Venus diameters in. It was maybe a little early for people to be around -- one child came out to buy a paper, had a look and was impressed; a couple of adults saw me and the telescope but didn't come over, and I'm too shy to call out to people at 7am.

I'd have left it out longer, but, taking off the aperture mask in the hope of increasing contrast as well as brightness, I was quickly disturbed by a certain fuzziness and instability in the image, and noticed a smell indicating that the plastic lens-holder inside the eyepiece had caught fire and the tube was gently filling with smoke. Fortunately it went out quickly and without other than cosmetic damage.

Comments

[helenbr.livejournal.com]

Did you get good results? I had great intentions of looking at it, especially when I discovered that it wasn't all going to happen horribly early in the morning, but realised a bit late that I didn't really have any of the proper gear to do it properly and hadn't worked out anywhere else I could go to see it.

[scottscidmore.livejournal.com]

Congratulations! I have to wait 8 years for my chance, so I'm a bit envious.

And I'm glad the damage was only cosmetic, because I started laughing as I read into the last paragraph.

Whoops!

[tombee.livejournal.com]

It _would_ have been a cool way to light the barbecue.