A venus B & B venus C -> A venus C
today we witnessed the transit of venus across the sun. considering its rarity and history, I personally thought it was a much cooler event than the eclipse, if a bit less aesthetically impressive.
sully ran out in the middle of the work day to buy binoculars, and a bunch of us together went out on the balcony in the mozilla office and figured out how to get them to project an image of the sun.
in addition to seeing venus, we also saw sunspots (in the middle there).
apparatus. I couldn't resist drawing a smile (not visible) on the shade-piece.
we decided to project onto a piece of paper.
transit begins (on the left).
sully calculates the astronomical unit in his head (not really).
second contact. apparently here sometimes people see the black drop effect, which makes it hard to tell when venus actually clears the side of the sun. we thought we missed it (or that the binoculars were better than the old-time astronomers' equipment...?), but it actually looks visible in this shot!
sully and marty consider the implications of venus's transitivity.
a couple hours later we looked again - very many of the mozilla interns were interested. note venus's changed position.
gwillen and ben's shadow take pictures. also note the changed angle of the binoculars - we had to keep adjusting them (even minute-by-minute) to keep the image in the same place.
sully ran out in the middle of the work day to buy binoculars, and a bunch of us together went out on the balcony in the mozilla office and figured out how to get them to project an image of the sun.
in addition to seeing venus, we also saw sunspots (in the middle there).
apparatus. I couldn't resist drawing a smile (not visible) on the shade-piece.
we decided to project onto a piece of paper.
transit begins (on the left).
sully calculates the astronomical unit in his head (not really).
second contact. apparently here sometimes people see the black drop effect, which makes it hard to tell when venus actually clears the side of the sun. we thought we missed it (or that the binoculars were better than the old-time astronomers' equipment...?), but it actually looks visible in this shot!
sully and marty consider the implications of venus's transitivity.
a couple hours later we looked again - very many of the mozilla interns were interested. note venus's changed position.
gwillen and ben's shadow take pictures. also note the changed angle of the binoculars - we had to keep adjusting them (even minute-by-minute) to keep the image in the same place.