You can always watch the transit here: June 5: Venus Crosses the Sun
On next Tuesday, June 5, from noon to almost 7 pm HST, Venus will cross the Sun for the last transit until the year 2117. It's the final time anyone alive today will have a chance to see this rare astronomical event and the Island of Hawai'i is one of the best places on Earth to view it. Keck Observatory is hosting a complete live webcast of the event from the Keck I Telescope control room on the summit of Mauna Kea. Watch the webcast at http://keckobservatory.org/news/venus_transit_live_keck_observatory. Meanwhile, we'll also be setting up solar telescopes and showing the webcast on a large screen at our headquarters in the more temperate and accessible Waimea-Kamuela. So wherever you are, you can be part of the historic Transit of Venus. This and other locations islandwide for safely viewing the transit can be found at the Mauna Kea Visitor Information Station website. Two Big Astrophysics Prizes Announced Two major astronomy prizes were announced this week going to scientists affiliated with Keck Observatory for their discoveries of objects beyond the orbit of Neptune – in what’s called the Kuiper Belt. UCLA’s David Jewitt and Jane Luu of MIT’s Lincoln Laboratories, have been awarded the prestigious Shaw Prize. The same scientists, along with Caltech’s Mike Brown, were also awarded the Kavli Prize for Astrophysics for that same work on the nature of our solar system. Mike Brown and David Jewitt have given outstanding talks for the Keck Observatory in recent years. Their presentations are archived on our website. MARK YOUR CALENDAR: 7:00 pm, June 7, 2012 Keck Astronomy Talk: "Transits of Venus from Earth, Jupiter & Saturn: Past, Present & Future." By Dr. Jay Pasachoff, Williams College Dan Matyola http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/danieljmatyola On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 5:36 PM, Miserere <miser...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 29 May 2012 14:32, John Celio <neo.venator.com+p...@gmail.com> wrote: >> I want to try photographing the transit of Venus across the sun on >> June 5th, but I've never tried shooting the sun before. Any of you >> guys have tips you can share? Is there a special filter I should use, >> or would a polarizer or ND filter be sufficient? I'm planning on using >> my K 500mm f4.5, so I'll probably need to special order a large enough >> filter, and I'll need to do that soon. >> >> Thanks, >> John >> >> P.S.: Hey Aussie PDMLers, I loved your country! Just got home last >> Friday. I hope I get to go back to Australia soon, especially to see >> the outback and more of Tasmania. > > John, > > ND filters aren't enough (unless you stack a bunch of them). I've > bought a solar filter from these guys for my own plan to photograph > the transit: > > http://stores.ebay.com/Seymour-Solar-Filters > > It was listed as "Solar - Sun Filter Sheets 9"X12" for Telescopes, > Finder" and cost me $17. It lets through 0.001% of the light reaching > it. > > I received it earlier this week but haven't had time to fashion a > filter from the sheet. I plan to make a filter for my Tokina 400m > f/5.6 and another for my Sigma CAT 600mm f/8. > > Filters for Solar observing/photography MUST ALWAYS BE ON THE > FRONT-MOST ELEMENT. The situation is so dangerous that for larger > reflecting telescopes (wider than 8") the "filter" is actually just a > hole in the telescope lid (with solar filter material covering the > hole, of course) because otherwise the concentrated and focused rays > of the Sun (even heavily filtered) could damage the secondary mirror. > In a standard lens, placing the filter in the rear filter tray would > probably damage said filter after a few minutes of observing the Sun. > > Now for fun stuff: How long does your lens have to be? If using an > APS-C camera, I'd recommend 1000mm. The Sun's angular diameter is > ~31.5 arcmin (arc minutes) and it "moves" across the sky at a rate of > ~15 arcmin/min. A 1000mm lens will give you a 1.3 degree (78 arcmin) > horizontal FoV, so enough to fit ~2.5 Suns. If you orientate your > camera such that the Sun moves horizontally across your frame, you > should have the entire solar disc in your frame for ~3 mins (assuming > you're not using a motorised mount). If you're using a motorised > mount, then use a 1600mm lens and have the Sun practically fill your > frame (vertically). > > As you're using a 500mm lens, I would suggest adding at least a 1.4x > teleconverter, or ideally a good 2x TC. Venus is going to be ~58 > arcsec in diameter, so some 32.5 times smaller than the Sun. Using a > 1000mm lens on a K-5 you get 1.05 pixels/arcsec, so the size of Venus > on your photograph will be ~60 pixels. > > I recommend this site for practically all information regarding the > transit, including your local times of visibility: > > http://www.transitofvenus.org > > If you have an observatory or astronomy club near by, check to see if > they're organising an event for the occasion. If they are I'd > recommend going to take a look through a powerful telescope, even if > you take your gear along and also take photos. > > Cheers, > > > —M. > > \/\/o/\/\ --> http://WorldOfMiserere.com > > http://EnticingTheLight.com > A Quest for Photographic Enlightenment > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > PDML@pdml.net > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
