by Bob Jardine
The sunrise was hidden in low horizon clouds, but they were the only clouds in the sky. I had great weather. The seeing was even pretty decent for ingress, and it was quite good for egress.
I observed (and estimated times and made sketches) of all four contacts. I used a TV NP101 with a 9mm Nagler (60x) for ingress and a 5mm Tak LE (108x) for egress. A Thousand Oaks solar filter (white light) was used.
Ingress was observed from the center of a bridge over the river Ebro. It was the only place in easy walking distance that had a clear low horizon to the East (ingress was less than one hour after sunrise). Egress was observed from the main plaza in the center of town (the sun was very high by this time). That attracted quite a few folks who came over to ask what I was looking at (and a few who knew). Of course, I let them have a look (except for right at the critical contact points, where I was trying to do careful observations and timings). They were very appreciative, in several languages.
In the many hours between ingress and egress I stowed the telescope back in my hotel room and did some sightseeing. Zaragoza (a derivative of Caesar-Augusta) has lots of old Roman ruins, and of course, lots of interesting churches, etc. Periodically, I kept tabs on the transit with BinoMites (very small, light, 10x binocs with built-in filters, from Coronado).
I also observed the transit without optical assistance except for my eyeglasses and a pair of leftover "eclipse shades". I was surprised at how easy it was to see the disk of Venus.
I was surprised at how big the disk of Venus was with all three optical aids, in spite of the fact that I knew in advance that it would be nearly one arcminute. I think thatīs less than about 50% larger in diameter than Jupiter at opposition, but subjectively, this disk was easily twice as large.
Also, I could easily see why it was so difficult to time the contacts for the 18th and 19th century observers. I didnīt see what I expected as a classic "black drop" effect, but I observed an effect at both second and third contacts that I would liken to a "contact lens" effect -- a very tiny sliver of dark, in an arc shape (maybe a 30 degree arc), just off the disk of Venus, between Venus and the Sunīs limb, separated from Venus and the Sunīs limb on both sides by small slivers of sunlight. This was dancing around, of course, and it came and went for a few seconds, but it was pretty obvious at the same time.
I was prepared to be disappointed, because I knew it wouldnīt be as impressive as a total solar eclipse. And it wasnīt. But I was surprised by its beauty. The incredible contrast (it was really, really black), the perfect circular shape of Venus. And it was easy to imagine Venus in orbit around the Sun, especially after I had been observing the position of Venus for the last few weeks.
Very memorable. Many stars. Joe Bob says: check it out -- in 2012!
Posted on sf-bay-tac Jun 09, 2004 03:33:09 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.1 Jul 12, 2004 21:55:58 PT