Pages

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Beginning The Year In Review: Transit of Venus

It's December 22. I survived the Mayan Apocalypse. I also learned how to spell "apocalypse." My belly is full of pizza and my glass is full of wine.

Tomorrow I head to DC to see Nicky & her husband's family for the holidays. The get together is usually fun, and I'm looking forward to seeing a few friends too. It might not be the sort of travel I'm accustomed to, but I've been rather sedentary the past few months, so I'm looking forward to the trip.

When I started writing this blog, I knew I wouldn't write as often or as long in 2012 as I did in 2011. I knew I wouldn't be doing as many interesting things as last year, and even if I were busy in some more traditional way, well... I'm not sure my skills as a writer would allow my to make, say, a day at the office sound exciting over and over again. Not that that's how I spent this past year, but you get my drift. Maybe I should have written "make a day sitting in my apartment sound exciting over and over again."

Even so, a number of times I thought to myself that I should write something. If it weren't for the lone comment on my November 7th post, I would think no one was reading any more. And I suspect my daily readership has dropped quite a bit since its peak 20 months ago. Still, I think I'll write a few posts to at least document for myself some of the things I did in 2012. I have once or twice re-read something I wrote in 2011, and despite how exciting everything was last year, I learned I'd already forgotten a number of things. Those memories might have been permanently missing had I not written them down. I hope I don't forget anything major from 2012 already!

I'll start someplace random... Did anyone else get to watch the transit of Venus across the sun? I hope so, but if not, you can share my experience.

Dad happened to be taking an astronomy class at Cleveland State, and he knew that a bunch of professional and amateur astronomers were planning a big Venus viewing down at Edgewater Park, the big park on Cleveland's west side.
Downtown Cleveland, as seen from Edgewater Park.
Dozens of people with telescopes -- many of whom are just backyard observers -- came with their telescopes and set them up for the viewing. Local businesses provided thousands of eclipse shades through which we could look directly at the sun.
As you can see, without a telescope, the sun was very small, and Venus was just a tiny spec on the sun. So until we could first locate Venus with the help of a telescope, it was impossible to spot it on the sun itself.
Can you see Venus? I can't!
Oh there it is!
Everyone in the crowd took turns looking through the various telescopes and their screens, while local astronomers on the loudspeaker kept the crowd posted about what was going on. Although the sun had spent the day hiding behind clouds, it came out about 2 hours before the transit. The weather was perfect and the timing was just right: The transit started around 6pm.

If you missed the transit and you're sad, try catching the transit of Mercury in 2016 or keep an eye out for some upcoming eclipses, including a total eclipse of the sun that will be seen in North American in 2017.

1 comment:

  1. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Gabz! Hope you had a great time in DC!

    ReplyDelete